Necropolis: Resident Evil IIS
by Liquid
Summary: In this sequel to Operation Arklay, Detective Tobias Liquid wakes up from his coma to find Raccoon City in the middle of the T-Virus Outbreak. Now with the help of young college student Elza Walker and a few other survivors, they must find a way to escape the doomed city before it's too late.
1. Chapter 1 No One Listened

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter One: No One Listened**

 _In the spring of 1998, an investigation was launched into the rash of bizarre killings that were being reported throughout the Arklay Mountains, just outside of Raccoon City. Instead of the RPD's S.T.A.R.S. unit, this 'Task Force Arklay' consisted of a of Officers and Detectives who were dedicated to the apprehension of those responsible, before any more lives could be claimed as part of the so called 'Cannibal Murders'._

 _Returning only days after the investigation began, the team brought back outlandish stories about an unkillable giant in the forest, dozens of flesh-hungry 'zombies' on the top floor of a hotel, and a hidden facility where ungodly experiments were being conducted on unwilling human subjects. However, every scrap of physical evidence had been destroyed in the process, leaving them with nothing but their word._

 _Instead of even beginning to investigate their claims, RPD Chief Brian Irons and Raccoon City Mayor Michael Warren denounced the Task Force all together, instead focusing on the 'disgraceful' price that had been paid in damage and casualties: A private residence had been burned to the ground, the top five floors of The Arklay Resort, a popular tourist attraction, had been incinerated in a gas explosion, and a historic mining site collapsed beyond salvage._

 _As for human casualties, the guests on the top floor of The Arklay resort perished in the explosion, with the Manager of the resort being shot after the fact. The Arklay County Sheriff was also killed in a shootout, along with all of his Deputies, reportedly after detaining two members of the task force, while the Arklay County Commissioner was reportedly killed during the mine collapse._

 _Task Force Arklay, itself, was not without casualties, either. Officer Kendra Ashwood, the team's Tech Specialist, suffered blunt force trauma to her head as well as several broken bones during what the others claim was an attack. She was airlifted to Raccoon City Hospital, and released after a week of observation, making her one of the lucky ones to avoid prosecution. Detective Janet Carver, on the other hand, one of the teams Investigators, was reportedly also killed in the mine collapse._

 _The team's final casualty was Detective Lieutenant Tobias Liquid, head of the RPD's Homicide Division, and leader of Task Force Arklay. He survived, but the Doctor's report indicated that he must have been attacked by some kind of large animal, given the wounds on his body, and the Toxicology report sited severe exposure to an unknown chemical agent as the reason for his long-term coma._

 _The remaining Task Force members; Detective Sergeant Francis McGee, Officer Adrian Lopez, and Officer Avan Chambers, given that they had nothing to substantiate their claims, were left to take the blunt of the city's wrath. McGee chose to resign from the RPD in lieu of taking on such a hopeless case, but Lopez and Chambers were spared based on their Rookie status, and even offered positions on a newly formed S.T.A.R.S. team._

 _Chambers jumped at the opportunity to salvage his career, and signed a non-disclosure agreement, but Lopez refused to stay silent about what had happened. He was jailed after assaulting chief Irons, but then vanished from his cell. Nothing came of the investigation after that, and the files were sealed, leaving Task Force Arklay to take the fall as a bunch of loose cannons who got out of control._

 _Over the next few months, the members of Task Force Arklay left Raccoon City, leaving only their still comatose leader to face prosecution if he ever woke up. Then in the summer of that same year, a new investigation was launched into the Cannibal Murders, this time by the Special Tactics and Rescue Service, who believed that they had pinpointed the location of those responsible._

 _As if history were repeating itself, the S.T.A.R.S. team came back with heavy casualties; having completely destroyed a historic estate, and telling unbelievable stories about zombies and horrific experiments. Just like before, the team was discredited for not only lack of physical evidence, but for poor judgement in the field, finding themselves suspended until a review of their conduct was completed, resulting with S.T.A.R.S. officially being disbanded._

 _Aside for a few stragglers, the survivors of Alpha and Bravo teams left the city as well, mostly to pursue their own continued investigations into Umbrella, the corporation that they claimed was responsible, and the people of Raccoon City quickly forgot about what was headline news for a few weeks. No one listened, no one cared, and for a while life returned to normal… until the beginning of September, when the price for their inaction was revealed._

 _No one had listened, no one had investigated, and no one had cared. Maybe the people were selfish, maybe they were frightened of Umbrella, or maybe they just never watched the news or read a newspaper. Either way, a terrifying yet simple situation that could have been contained if the people had acted back then, had now become a nightmare that appeared to have no solution at all._

 _Beginning with a few frantic calls to the police, describing attackers that were remarkably similar to the Cannibal Murders, only this time inside the city, the situation quickly escalated. Entire zones of the city were blockaded in order to contain what the news reported to be major riots and violent activity, but the truth was much worse. The deranged 'zombies' that had been reported by both Task Force Arklay and S.T.A.R.S., were on the loose… and growing in number._

 _With the people starting to realize what was happening around them, a mass exodus was started, made up of thousands of people trying to get themselves and their families out of Raccoon City through the south, which hadn't yet been barricaded, but this was stopped by both direct action to keep the city contained, as well as more and more people becoming victims of this Cannibal Outbreak… only to rise again a short time later._

 _After an intense struggle to hold onto the city, the RPD, as well as a mercenary force sent in by Umbrella under the guise of helping the 'people', were completely overrun. Previously established 'safe zones' and other attempts by the survivors to construct shelters were thwarted both by attacks, and by attempts to help those who had been bitten, only to suffer the consequences for doing the right thing._

 _Soon the majority of Raccoon City was quiet, aside from random groaning of the shambling creatures, or the screams that occurred when they stumbled upon one of the few survivors. But among the zombies and the nearly impossible struggle just to survive, rumors began to circulate of things wandering the empty streets… things that were even worse than the zombies, if the remaining people could believe such a statement._

 _Unfortunately, the most heavily infested areas of the city were toward the south, where the people had tried to evacuate, and thereby drawing the zombies right to them. This also meant that several roads into the city had been left not barricaded, allowing unsuspecting motorists or travelers to freely enter a place that for most of them would be their death, stopping at a gas station, only to be surrounded the monsters, or walking into a restaurant, to discover that they themselves were on the menu._

 _News broadcasts and other communication from within the city was quickly disabled, either from no one left to run them, or sabotage from unknown persons, leaving those living elsewhere no way of knowing what was going on, and leaving those trapped inside with no way to know when help was coming… or if it was coming at all. Still, a few brave souls managed to sneak or fight their way out of the city, although many more perished during the attempt._

 _The awful truth was that Raccoon City had been abandoned, and the few survivors within left for dead. No help was coming, and even basic supplies such as food and water were becoming scarce, let alone medicine. Medicine could still be found at the hospital, but no one was going to try to make it there… but if they had, they might have found an abandoned, comatose patient lying inside one of the rooms…_

 _His name was Detective Lieutenant Tobias Liquid, head of RPD Homicide Division, leader of Task Force Arklay, and quite possibly the sole survivor of the RPD itself… and also just about to wake up._


	2. Chapter 2 Awakening

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Two: Awakening**

For a while there was darkness… darkness, along with a sensation of floating, or maybe… not feeling anything really at all. Suddenly there was a blur, like a dim light had been lit at the end of a long tunnel, and there were sounds now as well. They were muddled and unintelligible, but they were sounds, nonetheless, and the dim light was slowly getting closer, while even more slowly growing in intensity.

But what had happened? He remembered being taken against his will; brought down to some kind of secret bunker like in the _James Bond_ movies, but the horrors witnessed there had been far greater than _Donald Pleasance_ stroking a cat. He remembered an injection… yes, and then the subject had been transformed into something _awful_ … something that had killed Janet Carver, and all the others in the room, before coming for him.

The abomination had chased him toward the exit, and he remembered being impaled by its now spiky arm… but then there was _gas_. There was a kind of green cloud that came from the storage tank which had been stabbed in the same attack… a green cloud that melted the monster's whole arm as it was vented out into the chamber, right through his body. The strange chemical dissolved the abomination almost instantly, but as for himself, the gas burned as it passed through his entire system.

Green, green everywhere, like a thick fog that was in his eyes, his nose and mouth, inside the wound in his chest… and it _burned_. But then there was nothing… the facility, the monster, and even the gas quickly fading into a black nothingness, which only felt like it had lasted for a few minutes before the dim light appeared. Now there was a slight tingling sensation as an awareness of his own body began to develop, and as the feeling intensified, it became uncomfortably similar to having a foot wake up after it had fallen asleep.

More and more sensations materialized as every part of his body started to register in his mind, but then there was pain… pain building up inside his chest, and it kept on building until he realized on some level that it was because he wasn't breathing. So with a lot more effort that something so basic should have taken, there was a gasping rush of air into his lungs as Detective Lieutenant Tobias Liquid's eyes snapped open.

The _pins and needles_ sensation in his body intensified during the involuntary movement that came along with this, making a kind of groaning sound leave his mouth while the Lieutenant tried to get some idea as to where he was and what happened to leave him there. The slightest movement caused waves of tingling pain to assault him, making it kind of difficult to concentrate on anything besides the overly bright fluorescent light that was shining in his eyes.

A rhythmic _beep-beep-beep_ came from the machines that Tobias found that he was attached to via the monitors on his arm and chest, and the parts of the small room that he could see were colored a sterile white. At this point, anyone with _half a brain_ could have figured out that they were lying in a hospital bed, and thus, half of the mystery was solved. Based on this information, as well as the labels on the monitoring equipment that read: _RACCOON CITY HOSPITAL_ , it appeared that he had been transported there after… whatever the hell had happened at that facility.

"Hello?" He called out, managing a raspy, coughing whisper. "Hello, is anyone there?"

The whisper was barely audible, probably because his throat was so dry, but now that it was getting a little easier to move his head around, the Lieutenant discovered that no water or anything had been left for him. Well, water or no water, he needed to find out what had happened… to the team, to the mission… to himself… so Tobias struggled to move his hand over to the _Nurse Call_ button that was built into one of the bed's armrests.

 _Ding_ , the soft chime of the bell went off, coming from above the closed door, along with a light above it on both sides… but no one came. Having brought dozens of prisoners to this place for various reasons over the years, the Lieutenant knew that the Raccoon City Hospital was a busy place, but the strange thing was that he couldn't hear anything outside the room's door. No patients being wheeled back and forth, no footsteps, no concerned family members talking… nothing.

Pushing the call button again, Tobias started to focus on trying to move his mostly unresponsive body, and this was not as easy as the movies made it look. In fact, it was ridiculously hard to make even the slightest movements with his arms or legs, as if his muscles had atrophied… but that was impossible, since muscular atrophy took months of inactivity in order to…

That's when he heard it… a soft kind of groaning noise from the end of the room opposite of the door, and when the Lieutenant managed to turn his head the other direction, he saw that there was a drawn curtain between his and the next bed. The realization that he had a roommate was a good thing, since for a minute there Tobias had started to suspect that he was alone in the hospital, a notion that he now realized was a bit ridiculous.

"Hey." He managed to call out a little louder. "Hey… you in the next bed… where is everyone?"

His roommate didn't say anything, instead causing shadows to appear on the curtain as they started to kind of shamble their way around it. Okay, to be fair, this _was_ a hospital, so maybe his roommate had been injured in a way that impaired their mouth, making them unable to say anything beyond that wispy groaning noise that happened again when the unseen roommate stumbled into a table with a loud _bang_.

"Hey, you all right?" Tobias asked as the shadow moved to the end of the curtain. "Sounded like your knee took a pretty good…

The Lieutenant was staining to be able to talk that much, but then words failed him when the unseen roommate shambled around the end of the curtain, and Tobias finally got a good look at him. The man's movements were slow and clumsy, but that might have been because his eyes were more heavily glazed over than the Lieutenant had seem in even the most _hardened_ of drug addicts in his twelve years at the RPD.

Beyond the movements and eyes, the man's skin was heavily discolored, with patches of it looking to have fallen off, and his hospital gown, the same kind that Tobias was wearing, in fact, was heavily blood stained, but… was it his own dried blood that matched the substance all over his mouth and chin… or someone else's? This second thought gave him a flashback to the deranged people that McGee and Chambers had described being trapped on the top floor of The Arklay Resort… and that meant that…

Suddenly the deranged man groaned louder, stumbling and shambling his way toward the bed with arms outstretched like something out of _Night of the Living Dead_. In response to this, the Lieutenant's first instinct was to defend himself… that is, if he had been able to _move_ at the time, which he wasn't. Trying his best to do, well, _anything_ about what was going on, Tobias managed to flail his body around a bit, but it wasn't enough to stop the deranged man from grabbing onto his arm, pulling it up to his mouth, and _very_ painfully sinking his teeth in.

"Get off me!" He yelled, trying to pull away. "Get the fuck off me!"

It was a little hard to believe this was really happening, since it all seemed like a scene from a bad horror movie, but the pain from the man's teeth splitting the flesh of his forearm was there to remind him that it was all real. Crying out in agony as the deranged man bit deeper and deeper into his arm, causing blood to drip onto the bed, Tobias started to feel a different sensation mixed in with the pain… it was a sort of burning sensation that started where he was being bitten, and quickly spread throughout his entire body, sort of like when an IV bag is too cold, but with heat.

Whatever this feeling was, it must've caused one _hell_ of an adrenaline surge, because the pins and needles feeling in the rest of his body vanished a moment later. The deranged man kept biting, and biting, and biting into Tobias's arm, spilling out more blood, but now not only had the numbness and sluggishness in his body faded away, but the Lieutenant now had the strength to reach over and grab the lamp on the table next to the other side of his bed.

 _Crash!_ The lamp shattered when he was slammed into the deranged man's head, causing a spray of blood and even a couple teeth as he was sent reeling backwards. Since his teeth had been ripped out of Tobias's arm, he was bleeding even more now, but thankfully the deranged man had fallen against the curtain, pulling it down onto himself as he hit the floor, struggling with it as the Lieutenant tried to sit up.

There had been plenty of adrenaline surges throughout his life, allowing him to do some pretty incredible things, but not only was Tobias now able to sit up and move around a little, but he felt _amazing_. Moving a bit like the deranged man, stumbling and shambling during his attempt to get to his feet, the Lieutenant had to hold onto the furniture in order to keep from falling over. This was better than the deranged man, himself, however, since he was still trapped underneath the curtain.

"I told you." Tobias said, his voice much stronger and clearer. "To get the fuck off me."

Cradling his wounded arm, and feeling a sudden surge of hatred for this twisted individual, the Lieutenant balled up the fist on his good arm, and slugged him in the back of the head, through the curtain. _Crack!_ There was a sort of wet, breaking sound when his fist found its mark, causing the deranged man to collapse… with a good amount of blood running out from under the curtain onto the tile floor.

Maybe it was because the danger was over, but after finishing off the deranged man, Tobias began to feel run down… like, _really_ worn out and fatigued as if he were coming down from a drug, or more likely his own adrenaline. Either way, he found himself having to sit down on a nearby chair that was against the wall, and with his arm still bleeding, he needed to get it taken care of before doing anything else.

The good news about this was that he was already in the hospital, and even though no one had responded to neither the call button nor the commotion, there was an emergency first aid kit up on the wall. Opening the lid, and removing the contents, the Lieutenant was surprised to find that the wound on his arm wasn't quite as bad as it had looked earlier, once he wiped off the blood with alcohol swabs… a stinging, painful process.

Regardless of how hard the deranged man had been biting into him, apparently the wound didn't even need to be sutured, although certainly needing to be bandaged to stop the remaining bleeding. A minute or so later his arm was gauzed, bandaged, and wrapped, leaving his only remaining task to determine how he had gotten there. So with a still fatigued groan of his own, Tobias started to get up, when he happened to notice the calendar on the wall… the one that was open to _September_ … when as far as he knew, it was _April_.


	3. Chapter 3 Elza Walker

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Three: Elza Walker**

Freedom… yes, that was a good way to describe what Elza Walker was feeling as she moved her motorcycle from the entrance ramp, onto the highway, where she immediately accelerated. The intensifying wind whipped around the part of her long blonde hair that stuck out from under the half-helmet that she was wearing, and even though this made it a little harder to keep her eyes open at seventy-five miles per hour, the wind also helped to keep her cool.

The twenty three year old had hoped that the temperature would have gone down, since they were moving into late September, but even though it was only about 9:00 AM, the morning sun was beating down upon her. Wearing jeans and a heavy leather jacket, the young woman was _finally_ leaving home, having earned enough money in the local amateur racing circuit to get her start in life.

And that start, she had decided a few years before, year after graduating high school, was going to involve getting a degree in _Motorcycle Mechanics_ so that she could spend her life doing what she loved… although at the time there was no possible way to pay for that education. It had taken five years of motorcycle racing at night, working a crummy waitressing job in the daytime, and basically giving up any hope of a social life… but she had done it.

Now, after being forced to watch all of her old high school friends go off to college, or get married, or whatever, it was Elza's turn. Yes, the poor girl who was always made fun of for having cheap shoes and clothes from _Goodwill_ … had enough money in the bank to pay for a college education. Of course, this didn't mean that she was going to _Harvard_ , or anywhere like that, since she _clearly_ wasn't a millionaire… but at the end of the day, a degree was a degree no matter _where_ it came from… so _hers_ was going to come from _Community College_.

Thing is, every local college offered different programs, and the closest one that she could find with the program she wanted was about six hours away… in _Raccoon City_. Her parents didn't like the idea of their daughter moving any further away than down the street, but at twenty three, it was more than time for her to move out, and besides, Elza would be able to save money by living in the dorms on campus.

Her parents had argued that the crime rate in that city was going up, and that there was reports of some kind of rioting before the news broadcasts stopped, but as far as the young woman was concerned, every city had problems like that. The college students in _Detroit_ and _Los Angeles_ had been just fine during the riots that once plagued their cities, and besides, it was only a matter of time before the police handled it, just like they always did.

Hey, there was an idea… maybe after getting her degree, she could get a job as a mechanic for the Raccoon City Police. Of course, if she was going to do that, why not just become a _motorcycle cop_ , herself? Then, not _only_ would she get to work on bikes, but she could drive as _fast_ as she wanted, _and_ throw people in jail… like the jerks who used to make fun of her shoes in high school.

"Mom and dad would just _love_ that." Elza said to herself, chuckling a little. " _Officer Elza Walker, motorcycle cop_."

Trying not to plan things out too far ahead of herself, the young woman knew that she needed to get the two year degree before she would be able to do anything else… and whether or not she applied to the Police Academy afterwards could be decided later. For now, she was content to cruise down the highway, where traffic really seemed to be thinning out with each exit that she passed.

In fact, after a few hours, there was barely anyone on the road at all, and by the time that noon rolled around, this was starting to make her feel uneasy. Pulling into the next _rest area_ that appeared, the young woman was hoping that there would at least be a few people in the parking lot, but this place was just as deserted as the highway had been. On one hand this was nice, since it meant she wouldn't have to worry about being approached by weirdos while using the bathroom or getting a delicious _Mr. Pibb_ out of the vending machine… it would have been nice if there was someone, _anyone_ around.

With a quick check of the _You Are Here_ map to make sure she was going the right way, Elza tried to focus on her future as she drove the motorcycle back onto the highway. She was about to go to college and make a whole bunch of new friends, who _didn't_ care about what kind of shoes she was wearing, and who knows, maybe she would even find a _boyfriend_. Yeah… been a while since she had one of those.

The good news was that Raccoon City was only a couple hours away, meaning that she would reach the city by late afternoon if she drove straight through. The bad news was that the most direct routes to Raccoon City were apparently closed for roadwork or something, with several of the northernmost exits being blocked off by traffic tape and barrels. This added another couple hours onto her trip since it now appeared that Elza would have to go almost all the way around the city before finding an exit that was still open.

"Finally." She grumbled, unheard against the wind. "At least the _construction workers_ must be happy."

Apparently, this exit was the back way into the city, and by back way, she meant so far back that the whole of the Arklay Mountains stood between her and what was to be her new home. It was a good thing that her motorcycle got so many miles to the gallon, because it had already been a long trip, and there didn't seem to be many options for service stations as she headed up into the heavily forested mountains.

Well, okay, there were a few road signs along the way for places such as Stoneville and Arklay Village, but having been a city girl her whole life, Elza didn't really feel comfortable with the idea of going to some backwoods place where they thought everyone had a _purdy mouth_ and whatnot. So she kept going, although truth be told, she might have veered off to try and get a room at The Arklay Resort… if she had the extra money, that is.

The sun continued to move across the sky at about the same rate that the young woman moved through the mountains, but eventually she reached the peak of the never ending slope, catching a glimpse of Raccoon City off in the distance, before starting back down through the trees. Yes, the trip had taken a few hours extra, but as the slopes of the Arklay Mountains began to level off, Elza sighed with relief, knowing that her trip was coming close to an end… and good thing too, because her rear was starting to get really sore.

After getting past the foothills and exiting the forest, the young woman had expected a serious increase in the amount of traffic that she would have to deal with, especially since she was now passing into the suburban outskirts of the city… but there was nothing. The slight uneasiness that she had felt back at the rest area was now turning into full blown anxiety, prompting her to take a detour down a side street in order to make sure that she wasn't crazy.

Her father's favorite TV show had been The Twilight Zone, and there was an episode that Elza remembered watching with him called _'Where is Everybody?'_ about a guy who is completely alone in a small town, and this detour was to see if she could see any signs of life inside of the houses that she was passing. Thankfully, there were lights on inside most of the windows, and she could even see a few people moving around in front of whitened television screens.

"Jesus, get a _grip_ , Elza." She scolded herself, slowing to turn the bike around. "Today is just one of those _really_ slow days."

Maybe it was some kind of a city-wide holiday or something, where literally everyone had the day off from work, which… didn't make any sense at all. Either way, this could all be sorted out once she was inside the more urban part of the city, so the young woman got back onto the main road, and was just turning to resume her journey, when she saw something that stopped her thoughts.

"Help!" A woman screamed, crying as she stumbled down the side of the road. "Help me!"

At first Elza had thought that the woman was wearing a red shirt, but as she pulled over to investigate, she saw that it had once been a white shirt, and that it was simply covered with blood. The woman was sobbing and nearly in hysterics, holding one hand at the base of her neck, where she appeared to have some kind of stab wound. Still trying to flag the young woman down, even though she had stopped, the woman was trying to yell something to her, but due to coughing and heavy breathing, Elza just couldn't understand her.

What she _could_ understand, however, was that this woman had been hurt, and needed to get to the hospital. Regardless of how her wound had happened, Elza knew that the motorcycle was the fastest way to get there, so she told the woman to get on the back of the bike and try to hold on as best she could, since who even _knew_ how long it would take for an ambulance to get there?

"No… other way." The woman said, much more weakly once they started off. "Go… other way."

"I'm sorry, I'm new to the city." Elza replied, trying to go faster without shaking her off. "I don't know all the shortcuts yet, but I'll get you to the hospital, don't worry."

Suddenly the woman started trying to grab at her, almost like she was trying to grab the handlebars, while also shaking as if she were starting to go into a seizure. This poor woman was probably hysterical from whatever attacked her and the blood loss probably wasn't helping, however her struggles slowly became weaker until she finally calmed down enough for the young woman to drive regularly again.

"It's okay, I know you're scared and someone hurt you." Elza said, trying to comfort her. "Just hold on, and we'll be there soon."

The woman didn't answer, instead just hanging onto her limply as they reached the first part of the more urban areas of Raccoon City. It was tempting to stop and check on the poor woman, but again, the hospital was the best place for her, so Elza accelerated when she saw the first hospital sign, hoping that not only would she be able to get this poor woman the help she needed, but also that whoever did this to her wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else.


	4. Chapter 4 Time has Passed

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Four: Time has Past**

Wondering at first why no one had come into the room in response to everything that had just happened, Tobias took a peek out into the hallway, and began to understand. Aside from the sunlight coming in through the windows, there were no lights on in the corridor, and his roommate's gown was not the only place where a blood stain could be found. There were some splatters on the walls that he could see, as well as a lot of overturned furniture, and what looked like bullet holes in some of the walls.

However, there were no bodies… plenty of evidence that suggested that there should have been at least a _few_ lying around, so unless whoever fired those bullets shot about as good as a _Stormtrooper_ in _Star Wars_ , something really, _really_ wrong was going on in this place. Stepping back into his room and locking the door, the first thing the Lieutenant did was check the phone, only to find that there was no dial tone.

"Well, so much for calling _information_." He grumbled, putting down the receiver. "What the hell's going on around here?"

There was no phone and no radio to contact the RPD, so Tobias decided to take a look out the window for a moment. Down in the city, the first thing he saw was that the trees were full of green leaves, whereas during _Operation Arklay_ they had been just starting to grow… meaning that unless that _Global Warming_ talked about on the news was real, some time had passed. The streets also looked different.

He noticed that some barricades had been erected at the end of a few of the streets; heavy, tall police construction, but there were also others… others that looked like they had just been hastily thrown together out of whatever was available at the time. Of course, none of this had been the case when he had taken his team up into the mountains, just a couple days before, based on his perception… meaning that some time had _definitely_ passed.

Not wanting to believe what was unfolding right in front of him, the Lieutenant decided to settle things once and for all by simply taking a look at the charts clipped to the end of his bed. A lot of it was medical terminology that he didn't understand, but what he _did_ understand was diagnoses and dates. The diagnosis, according to his charts, was a chronic comatose state that had been induced by an unknown chemical, and while the date of admission was April of 98', as it should have been, the date of last examination was September of 98'.

"I've been in a coma for… five months?" He asked, setting the chart down. "This kind of shit _really_ happens?"

Five months… it was hard to believe… but he was alive, something that his last memories would have wagered against. So then what had happened to the team? What happened with the mission? Had they been successful in stopping the Cannibal Murders? To find out anything specific, Tobias had to get back to the RPD, but first he needed to be wearing something other than a hospital gown.

Patient lockers were on the wall next to the door, so he opened it, and quickly found his possessions, or at least some of them. The clothes that he had been wearing during the investigation were hanging there, minus his long coat and hat, and his police badge was still clipped onto the belt of his pants. And there was one other thing, discovered inside his pocket upon getting dressed… his revolver was missing, probably back at the precinct, but his collapsed shock baton was there.

This electrical, and possibly _illegal_ weapon had saved his life on countless occasions in the past, and the crackling of energy when he extended it for a moment, made him relax a little. Collapsing it again for storage, the Lieutenant made sure that there was nothing left before unlocking the door, and venturing back out into the hallway. He had never seen a silent, empty hospital before, and when there was the _crunch_ of broken glass under his feet, he realized that the lights weren't simply turned off… they had been broken.

Power was still going to many of the machines, including the computer at the Nurse's Station when he reached the hallway junction, so he sat down and turned on the monitor. There weren't many things that Tobias knew about computers, but among the things he _did_ know was that they _always_ knew what date and time it was… and he could also play _Solitaire_ , but that wouldn't help right now.

Booting up, the activation screen for _Windows 95_ was displayed, but in order to continue, he would need a user id and password… but at least the clock was visible. The time was almost 4:00 AM, and the date was September 27th, 1998… the calendar in his room was correct. There wasn't really anything else that he needed on the computer, so Tobias was just about to log off, when he heard another sound of crunching glass… but this time it had _not_ been made by him.

 _Crunch-crunch-crunch_ , now there were multiple footsteps, but they were too regular to be made by different people, making it more likely that some kind of four legged animal had wondered into the hospital… but judging by the weight of each footstep, it was pretty big. Then it made a sound… a kind of heavy breath that was almost like a drawn out _hiss_ as it slowly walked closer.

If it was an animal, the last thing the Lieutenant wasted to do was startle it, but when the… creature finally came into view, _Tobias_ was the one who was startled. This thing didn't look like any animal that he had ever seen; several inch long talons on the end of both arms and legs, walking on all fours, and looking like someone had _skinned_ the poor thing. Not only had this large, lizard-like abomination been skinned, but it looked like its _brain_ had been exposed as well.

The abandoned hospital setting, a cannibalistic roommate, a months-long coma, and now this… _monster_ skulking about the wreckage. All of this, this whole situation was starting to look more like a bad dream than anything else. So was that it? Was all of this a dream that resulted from what he had discovered in the Arklay Mountains? To top off the ridiculousness of it all, the creature opened its mouth as it passed by, allowing a tongue that was several feet long to swish through the air like how a snake used its tongue to detect prey.

On the other hand, though… he had experienced _real_ pain when his deranged roommate had bitten into his arm, and no one could feel pain in a dream, at least none that didn't wake them up immediately, so again… what in the hell was going on? Reaching into his pocket to grab the shock baton just in case, Tobias remained as still as he could, hardly willing to even breathe as to not upset this… whatever the hell it was… and then the creature kept walking.

Crunching its way across more broken glass, the creature acted like it hadn't even seen the Lieutenant standing there… and maybe it hadn't, since of all its features, a pair of eyes didn't seem to be one of them. Either way, if there were such creatures around, it was probably a good idea for him to be somewhere else. So waiting until it was a good distance away, Tobias slowly got out of the chair, and started moving in the opposite direction, being careful not to step on any of the broken glass, himself.

The elevators were nearby, and the indicator lights above them were on, so upon reaching the doors, he pushed the button. There was a slight vibration in the floor as the car started up the shaft, causing the number to slowly count up from one, and so far the creature hadn't seemed to notice this as it continued to move farther away… that is, until the vibration stopped and the doors opened with a loud _ding_.

It's walking stopped the moment this sound rang out, the creature turned around as Tobias ducked into the car, and then it shrieked before starting to run. The monster leapt over desks and chairs, shrieking and growling as it got closer, all the while the Lieutenant frantically pushing the button for the doors to close. They started to, but it seemed that the running monster was just a little bit faster… so in a move of desperation, Tobias ducked down and dove out of the closing doors just as the creature was leaping in… and after smacking into the wall with a loud _wham_ , the doors closed, trapping the monster inside.

"Holy shit." He commented to himself, looking back at the elevator. "I can't believe that worked."

He hadn't pressed a destination button, and he doubted that the creature was smart enough to do so, meaning that as long as no one used the elevator, it was going to stay that way. As for the Lieutenant, he decided to take the stairs, heading for the nearby stairwell door while the furious monster shrieked and clawed at the inside of the elevator car. Thankfully, there were no such creatures on the stairs that he could see, so Tobias headed down, not stopping until he reached the ground floor.

Taking a moment to look through the door's small window, the Lieutenant couldn't see anything moving around on this level… not that the window provided much of a view. So he put his ear up against the door instead, but to his surprise he once again heard nothing. No deranged patients groaning and shambling around, no crazy freakish lizard things crawling on the walls, no nothing, and this was enough to make him risk very slowly opening the door.

Keeping his hand closed around the shock baton in his pocket, Tobias stayed crouched down while moving out into the corridor, but aside from the place being in similar condition to the fourth floor, it appeared that he had the whole place to himself. Still, after what he had seen so far, he felt that the best thing to do right now was to get out of the building, so he followed the directory signs toward the lobby, where the unobstructed glass doors to freedom awaited.

Sighing with relief as he moved across the lobby, the Lieutenant stopped for a moment to notice that the sun was already starting to go down, meaning that it would be night soon, and… and there was something else… something that made a sound like an engine, but that was flying through the air like a small airplane without wings. No… it wasn't an airplane, it was a _motorcycle_ , and it was flying right toward the…

Suddenly the bike crashed outside, throwing the rider forward, where they bounced off the ground once before crashing right through the window sideways, and slamming right into Tobias with enough force to send them both flying right through a table on the other side of the room.


	5. Chapter 5 Something's Wrong

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Five: Something's Wrong**

"Just hang on, okay?!" Elza called back to her silent passenger. "It can't be too much further!"

With most of her attention focused on both the wellbeing of her wounded passenger, as well as trying to drive carefully enough to not throw her off, the young woman failed to notice a lot of the subtle changes happening around her as she rode farther into Raccoon City. There was nobody driving on the roads, although she saw several cars that were parked oddly, as if abandoned, and suddenly there was a wall.

The tires of her motorcycle screeching to a halt, Elza couldn't understand why there was a wall across the whole of the street, until seeing the RPD logo at its center. Apparently the police had erected this barrier for… some reason, but there was no time to ask the few people standing around about its purpose, because getting her passenger to the hospital was top priority. So the young woman turned, heading down a side street, and heading west until she managed to find a small alleyway that was not barricaded.

Not entirely sure what the purpose of blocking off the main road was, hopefully the young woman would have gotten around it after having gone so far to get back on course. There were also a few more people aimlessly walking around the alley as she flew past, and it was a good thing she was on her motorcycle, since the way they were stumbling around, the whole group must have been drunk or something.

Some of them had their arms out as if trying to get her attention, but the young woman wanted to be hit on by drunken losers, she would have kept that ridiculous waitress job, and clearly this disappointed them, since some of the men groaned almost angrily once she was out of reach. The good news was that her silent passenger was still hanging on to her by the time they reached the main road, and better yet, there was a hospital sign pointing in the direction that she was going… however, something was wrong.

There were more of those drunken people stumbling around in the road, like… a lot more of them; lurching around the partially destroyed wreckage of burning shops and partially broken cars as if there had been a riot going on. More drunken rioters shambled their way down the sidewalks, and out of the still intact buildings, until another scream rang out. This time it came from a man who had been running down the sidewalk, and out of desperation leapt up onto the roof of a parked car while several of the shambling rioters followed.

"Hey!" He called, waving his arms upon spotting her. "Hey, you! Help! Help me, please!"

Unable to just leave someone who was calling for help, Elza slowed the motorcycle down to a stop, although she wasn't exactly sure what she could do for the man. The young woman wasn't armed, nor did she have any idea what he had done to make these people so mad… aside from giving one of them a swift kick in the face when he tried to reach for the man's feet. The one he had kicked simply fell to the ground, but then started to get up a moment later as if he hadn't even _felt_ the blow, and the other rioters didn't even react, remaining solely fixed on trying to grab the man.

"Help me!" The man screamed, wobbling when the next one grabbed his pant leg. "God damn it, help me! Don't let them…

The man's words stopped when his feet were pulled out from under him, putting a large dent into the car's roof when he landed on it with a loud _crunch_. But then the rioters dragged him from the car, throwing him down onto the ground, and making horrific screams start as they started to… started to… what the hell? The young woman rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things, but clarity of the image didn't make her feel any better when she realized that they were… _eating_ him.

The man kicked and squealed as the rioters sunk their teeth into his flesh, causing a pool of blood to slowly form on the pavement around him, but as horrific as the image in front of her was, it was nothing compared to Elza's realization that even _more_ of them were shambling up behind her. Clearly there was something wrong with these people; their eyes glazed over, and their skin discolored, while a lot of them had wounds or bloodstains across their clothes.

"Oh, my God." The young woman whispered as they got close enough to see the bloodstains on their mouths. "Hang on, we're getting out of here!"

Revving up the engine, and taking off just before the first of the deranged people were close enough to grab her, Elza had to make several hard turns, and even clip one of the people with her bike in order to keep moving. There had been reports of rioting in Raccoon City on the news, but this… holy shit, this was just _nuts_. There were so many of these pursuers trying to get her, and combined with all of the barricades thrown up around the streets, evasion turned out to be difficult.

Flying down side street after side street, crossing railroad bridges, and making several U-turns in order to avoid what seemed like an endless army of these deranged people, the young woman quickly got turned around, now focusing more on getting to safety than finding the hospital. Fortunately, it appeared that her passenger was waking up, since Elza could not feel her hands moving to get a better grip on her back while moving around.

"Don't be scared, okay, but we've got a problem." The young woman explained, turning down another street. "We're still going to get you to the hospital, but there's something wrong with…

Taking a glance at her passenger through the side view mirror, Elza gasped when she saw that the woman's skin was now discolored, and her eyes were heavily glazed over like the others when the groaned. The bike nearly fell over when the woman tried to bite her on the neck, and the young woman was only able to hold her back by tilting her head so that her passenger's teeth sunk into the helmet instead.

Taking one hand off the handlebars to push the deranged woman back, Elza's motorcycle was forced off the road, bouncing over the sidewalk, breaking the side view mirror off on a lamp post, and sending her right down the stairs toward the entrance to one of the Raccoon City Subway Stations. The good news was that the deranged woman was hit in the face by the edge of the wall with a hard _thwack_ , throwing her from the bike, but the bad news was that Elza was in for a _very_ bouncy ride.

Fighting to keep control of the bike as she went down the stairs into the subway station, she struggled to avoid the support pillars next to the tracks, but at least there didn't seem to be any of the deranged rioters down there. Still, now that there was no wounded passenger to worry about, Elza decided that it was time to get out of the city, so she accelerated in order to ride up the stairs at the other end of the platform.

Bouncing her way to the top, and back onto the streets of Raccoon City, the young woman immediately had to make a sharp turn to avoid a fire hydrant, but then accelerate to top speed in order to avoid the rioters who were instantly drawn to her. Suddenly a possible venue of escape appeared in the form of a more hastily-looking barricade that was made of whatever was lying around the street at the time… including a series of lined up cars what would do nicely as a ramp.

Turning toward it and, and riding as fast as she could, the plan was to leave these deranged freaks behind as the flew to the top of the barricade, and then ride down the other side where things were hopefully normal. However, there was a small flaw in her plan: After making it to the top of the barricade, the young woman was going too fast in order to stop once she realized that there was nothing on the other side of the wall… nothing, that is, except for a long drop that she flew over.

"Ohhhhhh, shiiiiiiiiit!" She yelled as the forward motion of the bike started to become more downward.

Now almost in a freefall, and with the ground approaching fast, Elza saw the sign on the building ahead that read _RACCOON CITY HOSPITAL_ , and even had a second to think about the irony of where she was going to land, before the crash. Slamming into the ground, the front tire flew off in another direction as it was busted away from the bike, and as for Elza, she bounced against the sidewalk, which sent her into a kind of sideways spiral… right through one of the large glass windows of the hospital.

 _Crash!_ Glass rained down onto the floor as she went through, but instead of falling with it, she continued on… right into something that was a little softer than anything she expected to land on. Together with whatever it was she hit, Elza slammed into a table, sending pieces of wood flying everywhere, while she slowly skidded to a stop across the shiny marble floor. The world was spinning around her, and there was a kind of pain that felt numb at the same time, but through all that… she was glad to have been wearing the helmet that was now so banged up it was about to break in half.

And the helmet did fall to pieces on the floor, but she was too shocked and stunned to pick them up… that is, until she heard a soft groan as the thing underneath her, which she now realized was a man, started to move around. Frightened that it was another of those deranged rioters, Elza managed a soft shriek, kicking at the man and scrambling to get away, even as the world spun hopelessly around her.

The young woman was so dizzy and banged up that she could hardly move, or tell what direction she was going, but she could still feel when he grabbed her by the ankle. With visions of the man on the car roof flashing through her mind, Elza kept trying to fight, panicked to the point of crying as she smacked and kicked at her attacker, but to no avail. Grabbing onto her wrist when she smacked at him, he pulled her in close, turned her so that she was facing away, and pinned her there with his legs while putting his free hand over her mouth.

"Stop." He whispered between labored breaths. "Stop… don't draw… attention. They might… hear you."


	6. Chapter 6 Recovery

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Six: Recovery**

Still partially stunned himself from the impact and resulting crash, Tobias acted mostly on instinct as he tried to keep the hysterical young woman quiet. She was probably all messed up in the head from taking a hit like that on her bike, although she didn't appear to be that badly injured, all things considering… but regardless of what aftereffects she was experiencing, he had to make her shut up. After all, both his roommate _and_ that strange tongue creature had been attracted to him by sound.

Her eyes kept moving around, maybe from fear or possibly the crash, but after a few seconds of being restrained, the young woman started to calm down. Taking a moment to look up toward the window she had broken, the Lieutenant was relieved that there were no other nightmarish abominations coming to investigate, because although he didn't know for sure, Tobias had a feeling that there were more where the ones upstairs came from.

"That's better, just relax, okay?" He asked, groaning as he sat up after taking his hand from her mouth. "No one's going to hurt you… can you move at all? Can you tell me your name? We're in the hospital, if that helps at all."

"There were… there were people." She replied, rolling her head to the side. "They were… oh, God, they… they were _eating_ him."

The young woman continued to ramble on about trying to get away from a crowd, and something about her hurt friend getting lost in the subway, but then getting lost in the city. At least, that was what Tobias was able to piece together, since she wasn't speaking in full sentences, and his attention was divided between her words, watching the window, and trying to make sure that she was all right.

Apparently, a lot had changed in the city during the months that he had spent in a coma; blockades, crowds of deranged cannibals, monsters… okay, well he had seen some of the monsters before during Operation Arklay, but those were a few isolated incidents in the middle of nowhere, not down the middle of fucking _Mission Street_. However, what had _not_ changed was the fact that he was a police officer, and it was his duty to protect the people of Raccoon City.

"Okay, I'm gonna need you to try and stay awake." He continued, lying her head down on the floor and standing up. "I'm gonna get something to help you."

Tobias didn't want to just leave her lying there like that, but without at least a little something to dull the pain and reduce any swelling to her head, it was more likely that she would develop a concussion, especially given how banged up her helmet had been. Fortunately, they were already at the hospital, so the Lieutenant shook off the last of his dizziness, before following the directory signs toward the hospital's pharmacy.

So far the ground floor appeared to be vacant of any cannibals or monsters, so he relaxed a little, moving past some more overturned furniture and broken glass, before passing a set of restrooms, where a flickering light caught his attention. Doubting that any of those creatures would be able to tamper with the lights, Tobias felt the need to check inside both rooms anyway, relaxing a little bit more after finding them empty. The deranged people and monsters must have moved on from this floor after… whatever happened to cause the mess and bullet holes, so he continued on.

The pharmacy wasn't too hard to find, but the door was locked, albeit with a simple lock built into the knob, as if a constant security presence was always expected. Well, the lack of security, as well as a single well-placed kick to the wooden door right next to the knob, allowed for easy access to the medical supplies with a loud _crack_ when the door swung open. Now all he had to do was find the right kind of medicine for the young woman, but this venture was suddenly interrupted by something moving in the shadows.

Just as the Lieutenant was entering the pharmacy, there was a sharp groan as someone grabbed onto him from behind the door, nearly leaping up onto his back and putting Tobias off balance… just before he felt a set of teeth sinking into his shoulder. Crying out from the sudden pain, while his attacker sent them both stumbling into the nearby wall, he tried to shake the still biting man off, but the freak just wouldn't let go.

"Let go, God damn it!" He yelled, trying to shake him off. "Get the fuck off me!"

Blood was starting to seep out from the deranged man's mouth as the Lieutenant slammed his attacker backwards into the wall, but without any success, Tobias reached into his pocket in order to grab his shock baton. Sparks flew as he extended the weapon and shoved it right into his attacker's face, feeling a bit of a shock himself as they were violently separated, but there was something else as well… that same intense feeling of heat spreading throughout his veins that he had felt during his _roommate's_ attack upstairs.

Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was the insanity of the situation… whatever the cause, Tobias was suddenly full of energy. He was awake, alert, no longer feeling any of the effects of the crash or either attack… and suddenly _angry_ as well. The anger came on him like a wave of hot water, focusing all of his attention on the attacker who was just starting to get up after recovering from the shock baton… and finding himself uncontrollably temped to teach this freak a lesson.

Collapsing the baton and putting it away, the Lieutenant grabbed the deranged man's head when he was halfway up, and then slamming it into the wall hard enough to leave a large bloodstain from the impact. His attacker collapsed from the blow, but instead of stopping, Tobias simply raised his foot, and stomped down as hard as he could, completely crushing the deranged man's skull with a rewarding _smoosh_. This was also a lot easier to do than he had imagined, being that this was the first time he had ever _actually_ crushed a skull before.

Immediately returning to finding the medicine once there was no longer a threat, he searched the cabinets and shelves until finding some _Corticosteroids_ , which was probably the best thing for the young woman on such short notice. No, he wasn't a doctor, and no, he didn't know the proper dosage, but he had seen paramedics administer this kind of things to perps after some of the more violent arrests over the years, and better still… they seemed to work after about an hour.

As the sun continued to set, and the growing darkness was offset by the automatic streetlights of Raccoon City flickering to life, the young woman became more lucid and aware of her surroundings, eventually managing to sit up against the nearby overturned desk. As expected, she became a little more tense when she realized it was getting dark outside, as well as not knowing who this strange man was who was sitting on the floor across from her.

"It's all right, you're safe now." He reassured her, taking another look around to make sure he wasn't lying. "I'm Detective-Lieutenant Tobias Liquid of the Raccoon City Police Department… can you tell me your name?"

"Elza." She replied nervously. "I'm Elza Walker… from Richmond… I just got here this afternoon, and… what the hell's happening in this city?"

That was a damn good question, and as much as Tobias wanted to reassure her that everything was all right, he just didn't know. That, and the adrenaline rush that had overtaken him during the attack had worn off shortly after, making it much more difficult to move and concentrate, like he was coming down from a high. Still, since they were still living in 1998, there were many ways to gather information, the most obvious of which was the nearby newspaper racks.

Searching through them from oldest to last, the Lieutenant was able to learn a lot about what had happened after his mission into the Arklay Mountains ended in disaster, including some articles about the S.T.A.R.S. team going through the same thing a few months after. Both missions had left the officers involved in disgrace, but even though this kind of failure couldn't have helped the city, part of him was glad to see the almighty S.T.A.R.S. brought down a few pegs.

However, there was nothing published after the beginning of September, aside from a few reports of some rioting, so the next medium of information the Lieutenant turned too was radio. Like inside every office, there was a small portable radio underneath the reception desk, but when Tobias turned it on, he was met with a mixture of static and silence, where there had once been at least three local stations. All of the computers were pass worded, so there was no way to use the internet… not that he really knew how… so all that was left was television.

One of the nice things about America was that the people were so impatient, that even in the _Emergency Room_ , they needed a television to keep them from going crazy. Sure enough, there was a small TV mounted on the wall in the corner, so he turned it on, only to be met with the rainbow band of the emergency broadcast system. There was a scrolling marquis on the bottom that told people to _stay calm, remain indoors, and stay tuned for further details_ , but that didn't really help him now.

"Are you getting anything?" Elza asked, leaning on the desk as she tried to stand up.

"No… it's too much to ask for a hospital to have _cable_ , apparently." He explained, turning to the other five local channels. "That means if you got an emergency on _one_ station, you pretty much got it on _all_ of'em… unless…

The employee breakroom was nearby, and the door was unlocked, so Tobias walked in, headed right for the coat closet. Pulling down each of the jackets and tossing them onto the floor… and stopping only long enough to take the cigarettes and lighter than he discovered inside one of the pockets, the Lieutenant grabbed a whole bunch of metal hangers. Returning to the lobby, he pulled the TV down from the mount, and then aimed the antennas toward the west, the direction of the nearest large city.

"What are you doing?" Elza asked as he began to connect the hangers.

"My friend, Barry Burton, figured this out when he didn't want to pay for cable, but wanted more channels." He explained, hooking the end of the last one to a window. "All you have to do is aim toward a broadcast center, link a dozen hangers, and…

Twisting the end of the bottom hanger, and wrapping it onto the TV's antenna, Tobias turned the dial until another station appeared… one that was fuzzy and hard to hear… but without the emergency broadcast loop. It was about 6:00 PM now, just in time for the evening news, and from the fragments that they could hear, the top story was about how there was still no word about what was happening inside of Raccoon City.

The image changed to show dozens of barricades, several major highways marked as _closed_ , and what looked like a _National Guard_ unit's vehicles parked in front of some of the barricades. Of course, through all of these fuzzy reports, and the obvious severity of the situation, there was something bothering the Lieutenant. According to Elza, she had only just arrived in Raccoon City, but if it was all blocked off for whatever reason…

"How did you get inside the city?" Tobias asked.


	7. Chapter 7 Roof Access

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Seven: Roof Access**

Still not feeling up to a hundred percent since the crash, Elza had managed to sit up against the nearby desk and eventually standing, watching while this man who claimed to be a police detective tried to find information on what was happening inside the city. It was great that he was able to pick up a TV station from the next city with that coat hanger trick, but even though he had an RPD badge clipped onto his belt, it was strange for a cop, _especially_ a higher ranking one, to not know what was going on.

"How did you get inside the city?" He asked, shaking her from her thoughts.

"Through an alleyway that wasn't barricaded." The young woman answered, trying to remember everything that had happened. "I was trying to get someone to the hospital."

Going through the whole story of finding the wounded woman in the suburbs, and then managing to enter the city itself, only to find that there was no way through. The Lieutenant's next question was whether or not she could find her way back, but this had been Elza's first trip to Raccoon City, and with the side streets, getting turned around, and going through the subway before jumping the barrier… there was no way.

"There was something else, too." She added, having nearly forgotten. "That woman who was hurt, she… she was fine for a while, but then she just… she just _attacked_ me like those rioters out there."

"That _is_ kinda strange." Tobias replied, taking a cigarette out of the pack and lighting it. "You know, the other d… I mean, back in April, my team saw something like these weirdos in the Arklay Resort. They were deranged, violent… murderous… but what would cause a normal person to become like _them_ so fast?"

It was certainly something to think about, but Elza's immediate conclusion was that the dead were rising from the grave like in _Night of the Living Dead_ … but that was ridiculous. Dead people didn't just come back to life, so maybe the rioters out in the streets weren't zombies, but… maybe they were on drugs? Maybe there was some kind of crazy virus out on the loose like in that movie Outbreak, but instead of killing people, it made them violent and insane?

"Man, that _stings_." Tobias grumbled, interrupting her thoughts again as he checked the wound on his shoulder. "Huh… looks like he didn't get me too badly after all."

There was a good amount of blood on his shirt, but once his shoulder was exposed, it appeared that the Lieutenant had only been heavily scratched by something, barely even something to worry about. A bandage was on his wrist as well, and as before, there was plenty of blood, although this time there was almost no wound at all, just a barely visible scar. He explained that two of those deranged people had attacked him while he had been checking out the hospital, and that it looked a lot worse before, so… maybe he had just been scared at the time, and _thought_ it was worse.

"Well, good." The Lieutenant commented, tossing the bandage into a nearby trash bin. "I don't need wounds slowing me down, anyway… are you well enough to travel? We should probably get to somewhere a little _safer_ than this hospital."

From what Elza had seen of the city so far, there didn't seem to be many other places that were even _as_ safe as the hospital, let alone better protected… but again, it was strange that a police Lieutenant wouldn't know more. It was like he had only just arrived like she had, or maybe he had been on vacation or something until _very_ recently. This didn't mean that he was stupid, however, since the first part of his plan to move them somewhere safe included figuring out which routes were clear before taking a single step outside.

"We need to see where the barricades are." Tobias explained, motioning for Elza to follow him, after flicking the finished cigarette into another nearby bin. "We also need to know where the highest concentrations of hostiles are located, since these people seem to like staying in groups when they can, but we also need a way to learn all these things _without_ getting ourselves killed."

"And how do we do that?" The young woman asked, trying to keep up as he entered the hallway. "Those people were _everywhere_ when I came in, so do you, like… have police access to street cameras or something?"

His first reply was a kind of scoffing comment that the city didn't have the budget for more than a few _red-light cameras_ on the main roads, but then he explained that the best way to make a map of an area was to be above it… _far_ above it, as in going up onto the roof and looking down at the streets. The Lieutenant was headed for the stairwell, but he stopped quickly when Elza suggested using the elevator, and _very_ tightly grabbed onto her wrist to stop her from pushing the button.

"Sorry." Tobias said, letting go of her. "There's a _friend_ of mine in there up on the fourth floor, and uh… I think its best he stay there."

Not really wanting to know any more about the _friend_ that was in the elevator car, Elza followed him into the stairwell, where they made their way up. The Lieutenant had extended his shock baton, keeping it ready as he moved slowly up the stairs one landing at a time to check for threats, and the young woman was glad that he was moving so slowly, because she still didn't feel quite up to running anywhere just yet.

She could hear something scratching or growling at some of the floor-access doors when they passed them, but thankfully the stairwell itself was clear all the way up to a door that was marked _Roof Access_. There was a chain and padlock on the door to keep people from passing through, however, the lock was open and the chain hung free, making Elza happy since they could move forward, but Tobias wasn't so relaxed.

"There could be people up here." He explained quietly, collapsing the weapon. "But there could also be hostiles… or worse, people who are _scared_ of hostiles. Last thing we need is to get shot by some panicked civilian, so let's try to take a look without drawing attention."

Slowly putting his hand on the knob, and turning it without making a sound, the Lieutenant carefully started to crack the door, only to hang his head when the sound of empty paint cans falling down came from the other side. Now there was a commotion from beyond the door; quick moving footsteps moving around, people talking in hushed, urgent sounding voices, and the thing Tobias had been worried about the most… the sound of a gun or two being cocked.

"Well… at least it's not the rioters." Elza whispered. "What do we do now?"

"We play it smart." The Lieutenant whispered back before getting closer to the door. "Hey, out there! I'm not looking for trouble, all right?! I'm alone, and unarmed!"

"Just because you're _human_ , don't mean you're _friendly_!" An angry sounding voice called back. "Now open that door nice and slow, and come out here where we can see you!"

Motioning with his arm for Elza to stay out of sight, the young woman ducked down in the shadow of the stairs while Tobias did as the angry sounding man said. From there she could see four men standing on the roof, two in white lab coats holding what looked like scalpels, one in street clothes with a shotgun in his hands, and the leader who was wearing the uniform of a hospital security guard… with a pistol in his hands.

"Now, you stop right there, Mister." The guard ordered, aiming the pistol higher. "Keep those hands where I can see'em, and step forward into our little circle here, and _maybe_ I won't have to _air-hole_ you."

"Holy shit, it's _him_!" One of the doctors exclaimed as Tobias stepped forward. "He's _awake_! It's Tobias Liquid from that shit up in the mountains last spring!"

"That's impossible." The other doctor replied. "The lab boys said he'd be in that coma forever, even if…

"Who cares who the fuck he is?!" The shotgunner interrupted, stepping forward to put the barrel of his weapon into the Lieutenant's chest. "Look at him, he's _bit_! He'll just turn within the hour like _Jessie_ did, so let's just get his stuff, and get rid of him!"

"Turn?" Tobias asked, seemingly not afraid of the weapon. "What are you talking about?"

"I see the blood, Mister, no point tryin' to lie." The guard answered. "Now we're gonna take what's in your pockets, and then you're gonna get as far away from here as you can before go _zombie_ on us, hear? It's nothing personal, but we're gonna need what you got more than _you_ do."

"That's right!" The shotgunner spat, letting go of the weapon with one hand to reach into the Lieutenant's pocket. "Now if you so much as flinch, I'm gonna _pop_ you just like I did to the rest of the _zombie meat_ that came up here!"

"So, you're _all_ confessing to _murder_?" The Lieutenant asked as the man found his baton. "Fine, you've made your point, so let me tell you a little story: See, _once upon a time…_

Suddenly in a quick movement, Tobias brought down one hand on the shotgun's barrel, while pressing upward on the stock, causing the weapon to aim downward so that by the time the startled man pulled the trigger, his own foot was blown off with a loud _bang!_ Pulling the weapon from his hands as he collapsed in agony, the Lieutenant aimed at the equally startled guard and pulled the trigger, sending the pistol falling from his hands as the shell knocked him off his feet with another loud _bang!_

" _And they all lived happily ever after_." Tobias finished his earlier statement while stepping on the wounded shotgunner's back. "I _love_ a good story, don't you? Now, doctors, if you could be good enough to toss your little _knives_ there over the edge of the roof, and then get on your knees with your hands on your head, I'll be _more_ than happy to place you under arrest."

Frightened by this unexpected turn of events, the young woman had to put her hands over her mouth in order to keep from screaming, and by this time both the shotgunner _and_ the guard had stopped breathing. As for the doctors, they did as he said, tossing their scalpels over the edge of the roof, before kneeling down. The next thing the Lieutenant did was call for Elza, letting her know that it was safe to come out now, and then telling her to close the door once she had joined them on the roof.

"Thank you, Elza." Tobias continued, keeping the shotgun aimed at the doctors. "Now, if you could pick up that pistol right over there, and then come right back over to me, that would be _great_."

Choosing to remain silent while she walked over to the guard's blood-covered body, the young woman had to look away to keep from vomiting in order to retrieve the pistol, but regardless of how gruesome this scene was, she was glad to be with a cop, because it would not have been pleasant to face those four men all by herself. Starting to hand the pistol over to him once she got back, and being surprised again when he told her to keep it, Elza managed to say a quiet _thank you_ before the Lieutenant turned his attention back to the doctors.

"Okay, _killers_ , listen up." He said, aiming at one, and then the other. "As much as I would _love_ to kill _both_ of you in _self-defense_ , I've been asleep for a while, and I need information. So how about you loosen those tongues of yours, and tell me what the _fuck_ is happening to _my_ city?"


	8. Chapter 8 State of the City

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Eight: State of the City**

Now that the situation was under control, the doctors were more than willing to talk, but the story that they told was, for lack of a better word… ridiculous. From what they said, after the _disaster_ that was Operation Arklay, the Cannibal Murders had only increased, regardless of how many deranged people and nightmarish monsters had been destroyed by Tobias and his team back in April. Eventually the people of Raccoon City and the surrounding Arklay County had enough, and put all kinds of pressure on the Mayor to get something done.

Task Force Arklay had scattered to the four winds, and the regular police weren't trained to handle such things, so the prestigious S.T.A.R.S. unit was sent into the forest… only to be about as successful as his own team had been. There had been _five_ survivors out of a team that started out with about fifteen personnel… far greater numbers than he Tobias had gone into the forest with, and like his own team, they were disgraced… scattering a short time later.

Of course, from his own experiences, as well as what he had read in the newspapers downstairs, the Lieutenant already knew all this… but this was where the story got weird. After the survivors of S.T.A.R.S. vanished, the cannibal attacks started to happen in city limits, and not only were there a surprising number of attackers, but it was discovered that they were infected with some kind of virus. This virus was passed through blood, saliva, and other bodily mediums, but it worked _fast_.

"The infected are driven by an instinct to spread the virus." One of the doctors continued. "The most common vector for this is through wounds inflicted through biting, and once blood is drawn, they've got about an hour before the change occurs… less if they die before then."

"So, you're saying that anyone they bite becomes deranged like them?" Elza asked with a nervous voice. "My God, this really _is_ like _Night of the Living Dead_."

"Once the change happens, there's no way to save them." The second doctor continued. "There was talk about a vaccine for a while, but it was never developed, and that's why we had to kill those other people. They got bit, and they would've attacked us as soon as they turned into zombies… maybe if we listened to S.T.A.R.S. about what Umbrella was doing, this wouldn't have happened, but there was no other way."

A lot of their story checked out, based on the experiments that Tobias had seen being performed in the mountains, and some kind of mass infection _would_ explain those people who had been trapped up inside the Arklay Resort. Hell, one time the Lieutenant had seen a monster created out of a person by injecting something into them, but there was one part of the story being told that didn't make any sense.

"I don't believe you that there was _no_ other way." He said, cocking the shotgun and making them gasp. "I think you didn't even _know_ whether or not those others were infected, and you killed them to get their stuff, just like you were about to do to me, and used being bitten as an excuse."

"That's not true!" The first doctor exclaimed, starting to stand up, but then rethinking it. "Every single person that we've seen get bit since this whole nightmare started, has become a brainless zombie just like the others! There's _no_ cure, and there's _no_ way to save them."

"What he's saying makes sense." Elza finally spoke up. "Remember that hurt woman I told you about, the one I was trying to get to the hospital? She was fine for a while, but then she attacked me just like all the others out there."

This _was_ a good point, and as the young woman said, it gave _some_ merit to what the doctors were saying, but it didn't mean that getting bit by one of these infected _zombies_ was a guaranteed death sentence. Of course, when he still didn't believe them, they asked how he could know anything about it, having been comatose for months, and the only answer that the Lieutenant had for them… was to show them were that zombie had bitten him on the arm more than six hours ago… and then his well over an hour old shoulder wound.

"That's not _possible_." The second doctor replied, looking at him intently. "I can see the teeth marks on your shoulder, but how are you still human? And how is there _that_ much blood on your shirt with such small wounds?"

Now it was the Lieutenant's turn to try and explain something ridiculous, but since he didn't understand it himself, there was no harm in sharing what had happened after waking up. Being attacked in bed, gaining the strength to move around, but then coming down from what they had called the _Combat High_ back in _Desert Storm_ , only to find that his bite wounds, which had been pretty severe, were no longer as bad.

"This is… this is _amazing_!" The first doctor announced happily. "I mean, if you got some kind of… _immunity_ to the virus, then we need to use you to develop a _vaccine_. If we can get down to the lab, we can take blood samples, tissue cultures, and if we can isolate what it is that makes you different, we…

"No, I have a _better_ idea." Tobias interrupted. "This hospital is nothing _close_ to secure, and if we stay here, we're dead the moment one of you jackasses tries to use the elevator. So, what we're going to do is what me and her came up here for; we're gonna figure out a safe route through this part of the city, and get back to police headquarters."

Then the protests started; both doctors saying how a police firing line had been overrun over a week before, and there hadn't been any RPD presence after that, followed by how the infected were filling the streets, and that the last people they had seen trying to run for it, had ended up swarmed in less than a minute. This time the young woman tried to keep them calm, saying that they all needed to trust the police, and that the station was probably the best place to be in the city… however, she had gotten just a _little_ too close to one of the doctors.

Suddenly reaching out to grab her pistol with one hand, while standing up and grabbing her with the other, the doctor pulled Elza in close, used her as a shield, and pointed the recovered pistol at her head. Tobias reacted, aiming the shotgun, but too late, and now it was his own fault that the young woman was a hostage. For a moment he had forgotten that she was just a scared kid, instead of a cop, and now she was rightfully terrified as the doctor yelled at him to put the shotgun down.

"Hey, hey, hey, you do _not_ want to go down this road!" The Lieutenant yelled back. "Now I'm willing to believe that your dead friends killed the others you mentioned, but _only_ if you drop the gun and let the girl go _right now_! You're gonna be fine, Elza, okay? Everyone here is gonna be fine."

"No, we're not!" The doctor continued, holding tighter onto the young woman. "You don't seem to understand what's happening in this city, so let me tell you! The police are gone! The people are zombies! There's no way out! This has been going on for a damn month, without any rescue, so no, _Elza_ is _not_ going to be okay! Now if you don't drop that shotgun, and kick it over to my colleague, I'm gonna…

The doctor's words were interrupted again, this time by Elza making a surprising move when she tilted her head forward, before ramming it backwards into her attacker's face. The doctor cried out as some blood dripped out of his nose, and there was a _clack_ when the pistol he was holding fell onto the ground, followed by the young woman diving down on top of the weapon when she saw that he was about to make another grab for it.

So without even pausing to rethink his strategy, the doctor ran for the stairwell door, leaving his colleague behind when he pulled it open, and vanished through. Instead of shooting or pursuing, Tobias simply lowered the shotgun, and listened to the sound of fading footsteps, before another door was heard quickly opening. Most likely, the doctor believed that he was going to be followed, and having dealt with a lot of scared, desperate people over the years, he already knew what was about to happen.

"It's too bad about your friend." The Lieutenant commented, putting the shotgun under his arm so that he could get another cigarette. "Figuring that he could never outrun a cop, he's headed to the fourth floor, where he plans to call the elevator and send it to the first floor, hoping that I'll race it down the stairs while he finds another place to hide within the hospital. Unfortunately, as soon as he opens those doors to push the button…

There was no need to finish that statement, since as if on cue, a terrified scream rang out from the stairwell, along with something that didn't sound human. Maybe the Lieutenant would have felt bad if the doctor hadn't been a coward who tried to hide behind a scared, little girl… a girl who was still on the ground, shielding the pistol with her body while the second doctor hadn't moved a muscle through everything that had happened.

"Now, _you_ have a choice, doctor." Tobias said, taking a puff and blowing out some smoke. "Your idiot friend just let a buddy of mine out of jail, and I'm gonna need more help to take it down… so you help us with that, and you stay committed to the team all the way to the precinct, and not _only_ will I not kill you… not _only_ will I forget about those people you mentioned… but I'll give you blood and whatever else you need to fix all this, nice and safe in the RPD's basement lab. Deal?"

Of course, the doctor nodded his head without hesitating, so the Lieutenant motioned for him to stand up, allowing the man to take a deep breath of relief that sounded like he had been holding in since this whole situation started. As for Elza, the young woman hadn't moved, at least not until he made a comment about her attacker no longer being a danger, and holding out the pack of cigarettes to her when she sat up.

"Want one? Calms the nerves." He offered. "Actually… are you even _old_ enough to smoke?"

"I'm twenty three." The young woman replied. "But those things'll kill you."

Stopping for a second to have a good laugh at her response, given everything else that could kill them in Raccoon City, he told her that she had done good, which was really the only thing that he could think of to say, other than telling the young woman to hold onto that pistol. So, now that the latest case of stupidity had ended, Tobias returned to his original reason for being up there, which was to get a good look at the streets… and hopefully find them a way out."


	9. Chapter 9 Exit Strategy

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Nine: Exit Strategy**

Everything that was happening around her was still really difficult for Elza to believe wasn't some kind of bizarre nightmare; zombies, a ruined city, desperate human survivors, and a police detective who was just as violent as any criminal… all of it made Raccoon City seem like less of a real place, and more like some horror writer's twisted fantasy. Of course, if this were some lonely nerd's fantasy world, Tobias would have been younger and clean shaven, while Elza would have been a size two that _somehow_ still managed to wear a size DD bra… and she probably would have been a _real_ blonde, instead of dying it every month.

No, this small group that the young woman was now a part of was no troupe of storybook heroes… they were more like a gaggle of desperate people who all just wanted to find a way to survive this mess, and Elza was definitely _not_ the kind of heroin who would inspire little girls for generations to come… _especially_ if anyone found out how she almost fainted when the other doctor put the gun to her head.

The remaining doctor, whose name turned out to be Ethan George, once anyone got around to asking, told them that he had fallen in with the others during only a week before, when they had taken shelter on top of the roof when the hospital had been overrun. There had been others there, possibly military, but the doctor wasn't sure, since all of the others had either been killed or retreated once the dead patients joined the ranks of the zombies. This explained all of the bullet holes in the walls on the first floor, but if heavily armed military men couldn't handle the zombies… what chance did _they_ have?

"Looks like a lot of the city's blocked off." Tobias said, leaning on the wall around the roof. "We got barricades on the other side of the Clock Tower, Army Street, Mission Street… hell, everything except the City Park, but there's nothing back there but the graveyard, and the old water treatment plant… not the best places to be with zombies and monsters around."

"So, where can we go, then?" Elza asked, looking over the side, but stopping when she realized how high up they were. "We can't get to the police station if all the roads are blocked."

"They blocked the roads, but not all the buildings." Ethan offered, pointing toward the Clock Tower. "I remember some of the armed men saying that they were either holding up in there, or retreating through, I really can't remember, but if they can get through to another zone, than maybe we can, too."

The young woman was glad that the doctor was cooperating with them, instead of doing something ignorant that would get himself killed, and Tobias seemed to like his idea. From there, it looked like, the three of them could maybe get to the cable car station that was just barely visible from where they were. As long as the cable car itself was in good shape, and power to the station hadn't been cut off, they could take the central line, as long as it was unobstructed, all the way to City Hall, just a short distance from the police station.

"Well, it's better than what we had a few minutes ago." The Lieutenant said, turning from the edge. "But before we can even _think_ about making a run for the Clock Tower, there's still the matter of my _friend_ that your colleague let out of the elevator. The good news is that now we can use it to get to the ground floor faster… but we'd have to leave the stairwell to do that, and this thing could be _anywhere_ by now."

Either way, the only way to the police station was down through the hospital, so after taking a vote, it was decided that the three of them would remain inside the stairwell, closing and locking each floor access door as they went, to increase the chances of not having to deal with… whatever the Lieutenant had locked in the elevator, at all. Having imagined such situations since childhood, Elza always thought that she would be the brave female leader during the zombie apocalypse, but the truth was that she was scared. The young woman had never fired a gun in her life, nor did she have any kind of training aside from the self-defense classes she had gone to with her mother a few years back… so she wasn't exactly a leader.

"Okay, I'll go first, since I've got the shotgun." Tobias said, making her sigh with relief. "Elza, I want you right behind me in case I get surprised, and Doctor… you bring up the rear."

"But I don't have a weapon at all." Ethan argued, quickly realizing that the Lieutenant didn't care.

Now that the plan and the order of march was settled, the Lieutenant led them back into the stairwell, making sure to move as quietly as possible as they neared the door to 4F. Again having to look away once they reached the landing, Elza threw up in her mouth a little when she saw the bloodstains on the floor, the scratches in the metal, and worse yet… something hanging from the outside door handle, that turned out to be a severed arm. Leaning on the guardrail and trying to keep her coughing muffled while Tobias closed and locked the door, she only replied that she was all right when Ethan asked her.

"All right, that's one." The Lieutenant whispered, stepping back from the door. "Just three more floors to go, and we're outta here."

This was great to hear, since Elza was about sick of this hospital, and her excitement to get away only grew when they secured the third floor, and then the second floor, each without incident. It was starting to look like whatever had Tobias spooked, was now trapped on one of the upper levels, and the young woman sighed with relief when they three of them reached the ground floor… and entered the hallway without incident.

"We're gonna make it." Ethan whispered as they headed toward the lobby. "The main entrance is just…

His words stopped at the same time that the group's movements ceased as well, since there was something blocking their path up ahead. The young woman wasn't quite sure what she was looking at; this seemingly _skinned_ creature crouched down on all fours, twitching its claws, while the permanent sharp-tooth grin on its face underneath its exposed brain, seemed to be a smile having found the three of them at last. For several seconds it just stood there, but then Tobias said something that sounded like 'hi, buddy', before aiming the shotgun and pulling the trigger.

 _Bang!_ A flash of light accompanied the sound of a shotgun shell being fired at the creature, and there was a splash of purple fluid as the pellets tore into its muscle tissue, causing the creature to wince and take a step back. However, unlike the zombies and humans that it had been used on, this creature didn't keep bleeding, let alone die… and now its grin seemed to get a little larger as it started to crawl toward the three of them.

"Back… everybody back." The Lieutenant said urgently, pushing Elza along when he backed away from the approaching creature. "You two, in there. Don't come out until I tell you."

There wasn't any time to question what Tobias was saying, before he roughly shoved Elza and Ethan through the nearby door into the women's restroom, and then there was another gunshot, while the creature shrieked. Both the young woman and the doctor jumped a little when they started to hear crashing sounds, like furniture and windows in the hallway were being broken. She wasn't sure what to do, especially when sounds that sounded like electric shocks were added into the mix, but for Ethan, the conclusion was simple.

"We _have_ to get out of here." He said, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Come on, let's make a run for it while the cop has it distracted."

"Wait, stop." Elza argued, grabbing his arms when he started away from her. "Tobias said to stay in here until he calls us."

The doctor didn't seem to care about what the Lieutenant said, and after a sharp comment about her either going with him, or dying in the bathroom, Ethan rushed over to the door. Taking a second to get into a runner's starting position, with one hand on the door, the doctor took a deep breath, pulled the door open… and gasped when the creature, who had been walking past the door, stopped to look right at him, even though it didn't appear to have any eyes.

Slamming the door in its face, the door suddenly flew back open from the creature's leap right onto it, knocking Ethan onto his back on the floor, while the creature landed gracefully near the doctor's feet. He tried to scramble away, but the creature leapt upon him, pinning the doctor down, only to cut off his scream by stabbing it's _really_ long and sharp looking tongue into Ethan's chest. The doctor kicked and flailed around for a moment, but then the creature flicked its tongue upward, slicing vertically up from his chest, and out through the top of his head.

Blood pooled around Ethan's still convulsing body, and standing with her back against the stalls, Elza knew that it was only a matter of time before it came after her. Slowly turning its grinning, skinless head toward her, the young woman managed to aim the recovered pistol just as slowly, before pulling the trigger… and hitting the soap dispenser to the left of the creature, with a loud _bang!_

Turning its head to look at where she shot, the creature grinned even more, as if mocking the young woman, so she pulled the trigger again… hitting the trash can that was closer to the creature than the soap dispenser had been, although this time off to the right. This was the first time that Elza had ever even held a gun before, let alone _shooting_ one, and the creature started to act more daring as if realizing that she wasn't a threat to it.

The creature opened its mouth a moment later, allowing her to see how long it's sword-like tongue was when it swished around through the air, and then it crouched down in order to leap on her like it had just done to Ethan. However, instead of leaping gracefully, the creature growled in surprise when it was knocked on its face with an even louder _bang!_ Elza hadn't even seen the Lieutenant standing there; a few more cuts across his face and torso, motioning for her to run over to him while the thing was stunned.

Not wanting this thing to have a chance to get up and come after her again, but at the same time not wanting to get anywhere near it, the young woman closed her eyes tightly, before running right past it. _Bang!_ Tobias fired one more shell as they backed out the bathroom door, making it fall on its face once again, and giving him time to pick up a bunch of broom handles, which he had apparently grabbed from the janitor's closet… and shove them into the handle of the restroom door like a locking bar.

 _Slam! Slam!_ The creature was _not_ happy about being caged a second time by the Lieutenant, ramming itself against the door while roaring… but the five taped-together broom handles held their ground. As much as Elza was happy to be safe again, it was horrible that they had to simply _leave_ Ethan in there with that thing… and now there were no survivors from his group on the roof… who would all still be alive if the two of them hadn't gone up.

"Are you okay, Elza?" Tobias asked, to which she barely managed to nod. "Come on, we gotta get outta here."

Why couldn't Ethan have just done as the Lieutenant asked? She wondered as they ran toward the main exit. All three of them had been supposed to escape together, but the doctor was gone before there was even a chance to work on a vaccine for the virus that was plaguing the city. Yes, it was his own fault for running out like that, but it also made the young woman feel even less safe as they ran through the front doors of the hospital… realizing that she could die at any time, even if she _was_ careful.


	10. Chapter 10 Tobias Liquid

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Ten: Tobias Liquid**

With the way that the barricades were set up on the roads, the only way to navigate through each zone was by using alley ways and sometimes little side streets that had been missed, leaving very few options for two people, who were, for instance, trying to get somewhere far away, like the police station. Thankfully, there were hardly any zombies moving around in front of the hospital, allowing Tobias and Elza to take their time.

From where they were, the only real ways to go, without having to scale the huge walls or scout through dangerous buildings, were into the Raccoon City Park, and through the St. Michael Clock Tower. Now, it was true that the park might have offered a faster way to get out of the city, but that way out was also through the Raccoon Forest, followed by the Arklay Mountains, where all of this had started.

Also not wanting to make his way through the construction zone, graveyard, and shut down water treatment facility that this method of escape would entail, it had been decided back on the hospital's roof that they would go through the Clock Tower. After all, an immediate escape was not his plan… there still had to be some kind of police presence in this city, and the best place to figure out what the plan was for restoring order, was back at the RPD, and the Lieutenant _refused_ to give up on his city just yet.

He had been born in Raccoon City, in the fall of '63, just in time for the little town of _Raccoon_ to begin its massive modernization project, begun almost immediately after the Umbrella Corporation came to town. It was almost like the town had grown up with him, seeing a cable car line, dozens of new businesses, and even a subway network put into place by the time he had turned eighteen. By 1981, the population had quadrupled, continuing to grow as the small city expanded into _downtown, uptown, industrial, commercial_ , and even _suburban_ zones; eventually being renamed _Raccoon City_ after the first election that Tobias had been old enough to vote in.

A one-time troublemaker, and self-proclaimed rebel, he and his best friend, Barry Burton had just _barely_ skated their way through _Raccoon City High School_ , both meeting their future wives, Kathy and Lillian, in the process. Graduating near the bottom of their class, but with no plans to go to college, both Tobias and Barry joined the military instead, parting ways when Barry wanted to be an _Air Force Pilot_ , while Tobias chose to become an _Army Ranger_. Achieving his goal and doing quite well in a military environment, Tobias missed Raccoon city, and came home after four years, remaining in military service by transferring to the _National Guard_.

The year was 1985, and while _Ronald Reagan_ was beginning his second term as President, Tobias Liquid had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. So he did what any directionless nobody in their early twenties did, and enrolled in the _Raccoon City Community College_. However, without a lot of money, and scholarship opportunities not being _quite_ as good as they would become in the 90's, Tobias needed a steady job to pay for classes.

The RPD was hosting a seminar on campus one day about the crime rate was increasing with the city's continued growth, and the man speaking, Detective Lieutenant Brian Irons, current Head of Homicide Division, actually gave a really good speech about how the _youth_ of Raccoon City were needed for service. With no better plan at the time, and being reunited with Barry, who was there for the same seminar after just getting home, Tobias joined the Police Academy.

After graduating from the academy, and becoming a _Rookie Officer_ … a time that was full of hazing, pranks, and general humiliation… he continued taking college classes at night school, in the _Criminal Investigation_ program, so that one day he could be a Detective like the man who had initially inspired him to join the force. The next few years went by quickly, earning his stripes as a police officer, graduating college with a Bachelor's Degree, and finally taking the Detective's Exam.

Starting in 1988, life had been wonderful for Tobias Liquid; he was promoted to Detective and was assigned to Homicide under recently promoted _Captain_ Irons, and this new assignment gave him enough money to be able to marry his childhood sweetheart, Lillian Winters. Turns out that investigative work suited him, since Tobias solved case after case, quickly figuring out how criminals think, and even cracking several old _cold cases_ , prompting the Raccoon City Press to refer to him as _'The Greatest Detective in Raccoon City'_.

This winning streak continued until 1990, when he had just been promoted to Detective Sergeant, only to find out that his National Guard Unit had been activated for _Operation Desert Storm_. So the next year was spent in the deserts of _Kuwait_ and _Iraq_ , returning not only to receive the _Key to the City_ , alongside Barry, whose Air National Guard unit had also been sent, but to find out that he was now a father. Yes, Tobias Liquid had a son, _Isaac_ Liquid… born about the same time as Barry's second daughter, Polly.

Family life was different than anything Tobias had been through, and now found himself torn between trying to spend time with his son, and a new position that was offered to him in the middle of 1993. When the new Mayor, a former civil engineer named Michael Warren, was voted into office, the Chief of Police decided to retire, leaving Brian Irons as the obvious successor… but leaving Homicide without a Division Head. So one day Tobias was called up into the new Chief's office, handed a new badge, and promoted to Detective Lieutenant… the new Head of Homicide.

In any city, there was always plenty of crime to go around, _especially_ murder for some reason, meaning that his hands were constantly full, and making the next few years pass by very quickly. While he was busy hunting murderers, his son had developed a serious crush on Polly Burton, something that Tobias and Barry continuously laughed about, while Polly was not quite as thrilled. The good news, though, was that in 1996, Tobias had saved up enough money to purchase a vacation home up in the Arklay Mountains… or, at least it was _supposed_ to be good news.

In late 1997, Lillian and Isaac had been at the Liquid Family Cabin, while Tobias was in nearby Arklay Village, facing off with fellow RPD Officers, against the Arklay County Sherriff's Office in their yearly game of pool… when a 911 call came over the radio… from his _own_ cabin. He had driven as fast as he could, nearly putting down his motorcycle several times in order to get to them, but it was too late… Lillian and Isaac had been killed… torn apart and eaten alive… and thus, the _Cannibal Murders_ began.

There was supposed to be a manhunt… there was supposed to be a full operation to bring these sick killers to justice… but winter tourist season was starting, so the investigation was blocked by both Chief Irons and the Mayor. Tobias did not handle this news well… having lost his wife and son, he turned to the bottle, quickly becoming known as a drunkard, as well as a stalker, when he began making awkward advances toward Jill Valentine… whose father he had once arrested while still a beat cop.

Suspended for unprofessional conduct, Tobias sold his house in exchange for a crummy downtown apartment, since he still needed money, but kept the mountain cabin because he just couldn't part with it. He continued to drink, and even began to have an affair with Annette Birkin, a scientist that he had gone to school with, and whose husband he _really_ hated. Eventually Annette broke off the affair, and Tobias's life continued to spiral downward… until he got an idea.

Putting together a complicated plan, as well as a list of personnel and resources that would be needed, the Lieutenant returned to the RPD once his suspension was over, ready to begin what he was going to call _Operation Arklay_. Somehow Chief Irons agreed to it, as did the Detectives and Officers that he needed, and the excursion of Task Force Arklay into the Arklay Mountains was supposed to have saved the city… they were supposed to come back as heroes, with the Cannibal Killers in chains for the whole city to see… but instead…

But instead, things had completely gone to shit, in the form of monsters and zombies that killed or injured some of his team, and left the Lieutenant himself in a coma for five months. Instead of saving the city, things had only gotten worse, and now there he was, again trying to find a way to make things right… while skulking through the shadows with Elza Walker in order to avoid detection.

Thankfully, the Clock Tower was only about a block away, and some of the street lights were out, giving them a little more cover, as long as they stayed quiet. He knew that the hospital restroom wasn't going to hold that tongue-creature forever, so hopefully it would lose track of them, and from what the Lieutenant could tell, it seemed to be blind, so the more distance he could put between them, the better.

"This way." He said quietly, motioning toward another, even small alleyway. "If I remember right, there's a maintenance entrance down this way."

She stuck close to him, maybe not agreeing with everything they were doing, and continually looking back toward the nearby park entrance as if she preferred to be out in the open, instead of being inside of another confined building like the hospital. Tobias couldn't blame her for that, after being trapped in the restroom, but although every threat outside could be seen, if one spotted a victim, that victim could be easily swarmed once the others caught wind.

"What do we do if it's locked?" Elza asked when they approached the heavy, wooden door.

"Better hope it's not." He whispered back, gesturing to a slat window above the door. "Because the skinniest person gets to go through the window and unlock it, and I'm not quite as slim as you."

It was almost funny, the idea of boosting her up so that she could crawl through the window, but turns out that the door _wasn't_ locked after all. In fact, once the latch clicked open, the door swung easily inward, allowing the two of them to walk into some kind of workshop. There were spare parts to… something, on a nearby rack, as well as mops and cleaning supplies, none of which looked like they could improve the situation… except for…

"There." Tobias said, pointing to the largest object in the room. "Come help me with this."

Along with all the other spare parts in the room, there was a large bell sitting along the wall, probably a spare for the one used up in the clock tower. Although glad that he wasn't the one who had to drag it up there when the normal one broke, the Lieutenant was more than happy to use it to block the door. The bell was really heavy, and it took both of them to slide it across the hard wood floor, but soon it was up against the door, meaning that no zombie or tongue-creature from the hospital would be able to follow them.

"Well, we're here?" Elza asked, both of them leaning on the bell. "So, what do we do now?"


	11. Chapter 11 Evidence

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Eleven: Evidence**

Aside from the sounds made by Elza and Tobias, the workshop of the Clock Tower was just as silent as the hospital had been in between attacks, leaving the young woman ill at ease as they looked around the room. The workbench and tools were starting to gather dust, as if no one had touched them in more than a week, but the rest of this partially carpeted room was a different story; with bullet holes marking places along the wall… and then the discovery of the first body… no, wait… there were _two_ of them.

The first body was a young man, wearing boots and some kind of combat fatigues that the Lieutenant didn't seem to recognize, marked with an emblem that looked like the Umbrella logo, if not for the shield and crossed swords in front of it. There was also an expression of agony on his face, making Elza have to look away to keep from panicking, but not before noticing the second body.

Behind where the young man had fallen, there was a young woman, unarmed, and wearing street clothes. The same expression of agony was permanently locked across her face as well, but there was no sign of what had attacked them. No blood, no broken doors, only a single hole punched into their chests, identical, as if something had been forcibly stabbed right through the soldier's protective vest with enough power to strike her as well. So… had he been trying to protect her from something?

"So what do you think?" Elza asked, keeping her head turned away while he knelt down to examine the bodies. "Another of those tongue-creatures?"

"No, I don't think so." The Lieutenant replied, making the young woman feel ill when he touched the soldier's wound. "Look at the shape of this mark here… that tongue-creature had a sharpened weapon, but this is smooth and wide, like a more blunt object was just… _rammed_ right through them."

It was a wonder to the young woman, how Tobias could just start investigating these bodies as if nothing was wrong, but then again, he _was_ a Homicide Detective, so seeing dead people was likely nothing new to him. Elza, on the other hand, was rapidly learning that she was _not_ cut out for police work, and with each passing second in Raccoon City, she wished that she had just stayed home.

"He's still got ammo on him, but his pistol's empty." Tobias continued, picking up the fallen weapon and searching the two bodies. "There's also less holes in the wall than can fit in the magazine, meaning that he mostly hit what he was aiming at… but _what_ was he aiming at?"

The Lieutenant had now gone into full _detective mode_ , probably by reflex, and was moving all around the room as if he were looking for clues, observing next that neither body had been eaten, suggesting that no infected creatures had done this… but there was also no blood on the ground, or other bullet casings, leaving him baffled as to how a person could have managed it. The Lieutenant appeared to be stumped, commenting that _more evidence was needed_ , before taking the soldier's pistol and dividing the remaining ammo between them.

"How can you do that?" She asked when he stood up. "How can you think about clues and mysteries at a time like this? These poor people are _dead_ , for God's sake."

"Yes, they certainly are." Tobias replied calmly. "And I can do this right now, because I don't want to blindly run into whatever did this to them, without having _some_ idea what I'm dealing with. In a murder case, examining the victim is like giving them a way to say _'here's what happened to me… here's who killed me.'_ ".

From this hasty look over the bodies, the Lieutenant was able to determine that whatever killed them was big, _incredibly_ strong, and didn't fear little things like bullets. It also reminded him of someone that he had faced off against up in the Arklay Mountains; a nearly invincible giant of a man who wore a long green coat, and didn't say much. However, the combined efforts of Task Force Arklay resulted with the bullet-riddled and burned giant being thrown over a cliff, and besides… the wounds on these bodies had been inflicted with a _weapon_ , and the giant hadn't needed anything besides his _bare fists_.

"We're not going to learn anything else in _here_." Tobias continued, pointing toward the far door. "And either way, we've got to get to the…

 _Bam! Creak!_ The Lieutenant's words were interrupted by the sudden sounds from above, with a slight tremor passing through the room, while some dust was scattered near the ceiling, but then the sound stopped. Remaining still and quiet even before Tobias motioned for her to be, Elza found herself feeling even more frightened than when the tongue creature had attacked them in the bathroom, which was strange because she didn't even _know_ what was making the sounds above them.

"What was that?" The young woman asked, looking upward at the falling dust. "People, you think?"

"I don't know, maybe." The Lieutenant replied. "Either way, we gotta get through here, so let's just be careful."

Keeping a tightened grip on her pistol as he opened the door, even though she barely knew how to use it, and hadn't exactly saved the day last time she had to pull the trigger, Elza tried to keep her rapid breathing quiet while they moved into a carpeted hallway. The light fixtures mounted on the wall were small wattage bulbs that she guessed were supposed to simulate candlelight, casting a dim glow on the paintings and small display cabinets that occupied the corridor.

Thankfully, the full moon made up for the lack of brightness, since the sun had been down for a while now, but as they made the first turn, into an area that had bullet holes on the walls, the moonlight was starting to be overshadowed by dark clouds… dark clouds that began to drop a light sprinkling of rain drops just as they discovered the hallway's first body. The sprinkle quickly turned into a slight downpour, making Elza feel even more nervous, but not stopping the Lieutenant from kneeling down to make more observations.

"Bullet holes on the wall behind us, soldier facing the way we came." He commented, looking at the wound that killed him next. "Tight grip on his shotgun, collapsed to the floor after what looks like a single impact wound to the head… no evidence of attacker's blood or a weapon."

From these clues on the body, the Lieutenant concluded that whoever or whatever had attacked this soldier, was the same thing that killed the man and woman in the other room; entering through the same door she and Tobias had, it followed the others down the hallway, and this soldier had maybe been trying to give the others time to escape? Again, this soldier's weapon was empty, but there were some shells scattered on the ground, as if he had been trying to reload when the attacker caught up to him.

"This is starting to look _bad_." The Lieutenant continued, picking up the fallen shells and loading them into his own shotgun. "But I don't hear anything coming from up ahead, so if we're lucky, whatever came through here killed who it was after, before moving on. If we're not…

He didn't really need to finish that sentence for Elza to understand that it was possible for whatever _nightmare_ that had done this… to still be in the Clock Tower. Oh, why, oh, _why_ hadn't the young woman just decided to stay home where it was safe, instead of _rushing_ off to Raccoon City for what she had believed was well deserved and overdue freedom? She could have been out with friends or sleeping in her own bed at that moment, but _no_ … instead she was sneaking her way through a zombie nightmare with a cop who treated dead people like an episode of _Hard Copy_.

Now the rain was coming down even harder, soaking the windows with a steady torrent of water, and making Elza jump when there was a flash of lightning, followed by thunder just a few seconds behind. Gripping the pistol so hard that her knuckles were turning white, she continued following him, although getting a lot closer when the hallway came to an end. _Creak… creak_ … more sounds coming from above, scattering more dust from the ceiling, and making the young woman start to tremble, since it seemed to be _following_ them.

Putting his finger to his lips, and Elza wishing that she could do more to stay quiet, the Lieutenant quietly turned the doorknob, holding his shotgun ready before slowly nudging the door open. A long, drawn out squeak of the door's rusty hinges cut through the silence, but although there were more people in the next room, they were just as dead as the others. There were more bullet holes in the walls and ceiling, and one of the room's many bookcases had been toppled over, pinning some of the bodies underneath, while one had been left splayed out on top as if he were the cause of the fall.

This room looked almost like a small library, since aside from the broken furniture, there were several well maintained bookshelves, and even a couple small reading tables, each with a lamp and chair. As for the bodies, more soldiers with the same Umbrella-like emblem and body armor that didn't seem to do any good, and Elza was about to ask if they could just move on, when her words were interrupted by a slight creak from a nearby wardrobe cabinet.

"Who's in there?!" Tobias demanded, cocking the shotgun and aiming at the cabinet. "I heard you sneaking around over there, so you got until I finish this sentence to come out, or I'm gonna put a load of buckshot right through that…

"Okay, okay, I'm out!" The short-haired man inside whispered, pushing the cabinet door open with his foot. "Just for God's sake, keep your voice down!"

He wore camouflage pants and an orange vest, _clearly_ not the same thing that the soldiers had on, nor did the emblem on the sleeve of his white undershirt match the Umbrella design of the others. His was black with some yellow stars around a circle, but right now all the young woman could wonder about was how he had managed to get into the wardrobe like that. He was balled up in a fetal position, on the middle-most shelf of four, in a space that barely looked big enough to fit a _child_ , impossible with how tall he was once he crawled out.

"Wait a second… _Vickers_?" Tobias asked, lowering his weapon. "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"Staying alive, same as you, I imagine." Vickers whispered nervously. "You would've hid in there, too, if you saw what I did… but how the hell are _you_ here, _Lieutenant_? I thought you were supposed to be in a coma."

Once they got around to introductions, the Lieutenant introduced the nervous man as Brad Vickers, also from the RPD, but part of their recently disgraced S.T.A.R.S. unit. Apparently, this man had been in the Clock Tower when all of the soldiers came through, and whenever Tobias started trying to ask him about what had happened here, Vickers would simply warn them again to keep their voices down.

"Damn it, Vickers, you need to tell us what happened here." Tobias whispered harshly. "Now, what was it that killed these men, and how many of them were there?"

" _One_." The nervous man replied. "This was done by _one_ creature, now if we don't shut the _fuck up_ and get out of here, like, _right now_ , it's gonna…

Suddenly Vickers' words were drowned out by a kind of angry, inhuman growling sound, followed by more noises coming from above, but this time they were moving away, as if something big was up there searching for a way down.

"Oh, God, it's still here." Vickers continued, taking a step backwards.


	12. Chapter 12 The STARS Hunter

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twelve: The S.T.A.R.S. Hunter**

"All right, let's get the hell out of here." Tobias said quietly, not wanting to meet something that could kill a dozen armed men. "Is the front door still an option, Vickers?"

"No, the mercs barricaded it." The nervous man replied. "From here, the quickest way out is through the door near the old chapel."

Having been to the Clock Tower many times in his life, mostly during cases, and once to chaperone a tour for his son's school, the Lieutenant knew that the only way down from the upper levels was a wide staircase in the building's main lobby. At the rate the unknown threat was moving above them, there was only a minute or two until it found its way there, and the idea was for the three of them to be long gone before that happened.

"Elza, stay close." He continued, taking a last look around the room. "Vickers, you might want to grab some ammo from these guys before we go."

The man known throughout the RPD, and even by his own unit, as _'Chickenheart'_ , looked even more nervous than usual, squeamish even, as he forced himself to grab a couple clips for his pistol. Once he was done, Tobias moved over to the door, opening it and carefully moving through, with Elza close behind, into the building's lobby. As expected, there were more bodies scattered about the elaborate decor of the lobby; the room lit by three massive chandeliers, expensive artwork and paintings along the walls, and stained wood furniture sitting atop a floor that was so shiny it was nearly mirror-finish.

A heavy wooden beam was set across the locking bars of the giant front double-doors, meaning that just like Vickers had said, their only way out was at the far end of the room, meaning that the three of them had to pass by the beautiful marble staircase in the center of the room, which led to the walkway above. Thankfully, the unknown threat hadn't reached the walkway, meaning that there was still a little time for them to get away… except…

"Everyone, hold up." Tobias said, suddenly stopping. "I don't hear it moving up there anymore."

The others stopped as well, and as they all looked up toward the ceiling, they too, noticed that there were no more sounds or dust clouds being made, as if the unknown threat had just vanished. Too bad that nothing _ever_ simply vanished into thin air, especially things that were out to cause trouble… but with no way to find out where this thing that Vickers had described went, the Lieutenant wasn't sure what they should do.

"Shouldn't we just keep going?" Elza whispered, continually looking up toward the walkway. "I mean, isn't this our best chance?"

"No, it's not." Tobias explained. "We've been using its noise to track it, so maybe _its_ doing the same thing with _us_. That would mean that its either holding still until it hears us again, or it's found another way around to…

"Screw this, we need to keep moving!" Vickers interrupted in a harsh whisper. "I'm not waiting around for that thing to come back!"

Turning toward the far door, and sprinting with footsteps that echoed loudly throughout the room, the nervous man ignored Tobias and Elza's calls for him to come back, forcing them to run after him. So far the mysterious threat hadn't come charging across the upstairs walkway, but then just when the nervous man was about to reach the door, all three of them stopped in their tracks as the knob turned.

Were there still some survivors from the merc unit? Tobias wondered as the door started to open. Was it going to be cops? Crazed survivors like the ones met on the hospital roof? But the answer was none of the above… for when the door opened, it was not a person, but a seven foot tall, muscular, monster of a… well, _monster_. Clothes in a kind of black overcoat with boots, its skinless head consisted of lips that were pulled back so that its teeth were in a permanent grin, and although a large staples patch covered half of its face, its remaining eye was so white that it almost seemed to glow.

The large tubular veins… or _whatever_ it was sticking out of the coat by its shoulders, were pulsating as the monster took large, slow steps into the lobby, forcing the ever paler Brad Vickers to back away at the same pace. It made a kind of growling noise, turning its head so that its eye was focused right onto the nervous man, and soon he had backed up so far that Elza and Tobias were forced to back up with him.

" _Sstarss_." The monster said in a deep, rasping voice.

For a moment, the Lieutenant was so startled by the monster's ability to speak, that he wouldn't have understood what it meant by that word… until he saw the S.T.A.R.S. unit patch on the nervous man's sleeve, but… that was ridiculous to even _think_ about. Was it possible that this monster was somehow seeking out the members of S.T.A.R.S.? And even if it was… what would be the point? The time for questions was over, however, when Vickers screamed and ran away, causing the monster to roar before chasing after him.

Before he or the young woman could react, the monster was right on top of them, but instead of attacking, it simply ran right past them in order to pursue Vickers, who was already half way up the stairs. Not really understanding what was going on, or why it was happening, the Lieutenant only knew that he couldn't leave another RPD officer behind… so he turned toward the creature, aimed the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.

 _Bang!_ The monster had been just about to grab the nervous man's leg, but instead there was a flash of light as the shell struck it in the foot, causing the monster to growl as it missed Vickers before falling face first onto the stairs. The nervous man continued up toward the second floor while his pursuer slid back down to the lobby, and as if not hurt by the shell in the slightest, the abomination growled while getting to its feet.

"Elza, get out of here." Tobias ordered, cocking the shotgun. "Get to the… what?"

Again, instead of attacking him, the monster just glared in their general direction, growling as if irritated… but then turning away and walking up the stairs after Vickers. Apparently the Lieutenant's suspicion was true; this abomination was not only _specifically_ going after Vickers, but also ignoring anything that wasn't directly a threat. So was that what happened to the dead soldiers? Had they tried to fight off this monster, not realizing what it was after?

" _Sstarss_." It growled again, taking the first step upward.

But if all this was true, why was it after him and the S.T.A.R.S. unit in the first place? Vickers screamed, running down the walkway away from the stairs, while the monster's head moved to follow him for a moment, before resuming pursuit. _Bang!_ Tobias fired another shell, this time tearing into the monster's coat as it struck it in the back, again making it stumble forward. However, instead of falling, or continuing to go after Vickers, the monster growled while turning around… leaping toward the Lieutenant.

Barely having time to react, Tobias dove out of the way, while the monster flew past Elza by mere inches. _Wham!_ Its massive fist striking the floor hard enough to put a crack in it, the monster stood back up from its kneeling position, this time turning its eye toward the Lieutenant as he got up from his escape roll, and growling again while Elza crept up the stairs. This wasn't the way that Tobias had _wanted_ her to go, but at least the young woman was out of his direct line of… _oh, shit!_

Suddenly the monster rushed forward, moving a lot faster than the Lieutenant had expected, pulling its large arm across its chest, and then bringing the back of its fist across Tobias's head. Now the world was spinning, going completely around at least two times as he was lifted off his feet, and sent bouncing across one of the hardwood tables, where he fell to the floor after falling off the side.

The shotgun had flown from his hand, and the Lieutenant's vision was still rocked to the side during his failed attempt to get up, which just ended with him falling back onto the floor. His ears were ringing, and his body was no longer doing what he wanted, although leaving Tobias perfectly aware of when the monster grabbed him by the back of the neck. The grip that lifted him off the ground was stronger than anything he had ever felt, even stronger than the green-coated giant in the Arklay Mountains, and after roaring into his face, the abomination tossed him away.

Bouncing across the floor back the way he came, and ending up on his back once he slid to a stop, the Lieutenant rolled his head to the side, struggling to think of a way out of this as the monster slowly approached… but instead seeing the shotgun. The weapon was on the floor just inches from his outstretched arm, so Tobias focused his remaining strength to reach it, feeling the tips of his fingers start to grip the stock… when the sensation turned to pain as the monster stepped onto his forearm, pressing its foot down hard enough to make him cry out in pain.

Now standing above him, the monster reached down to grab him once again, but with his other hand, the Lieutenant managed to grab his shock baton. Sparks flew when he brought it across the abomination's outstretched hand, making the monster growl and twitch a bit while the crackling energy flowed up and down its body, and also causing it to lift the foot from his forearm… before kicking him with it.

Again flying while the world spun, Tobias crashed into the nearby wall, collapsing in a heap on the floor, while something started to extend out from under the monster's sleeve. It was one of those appendages, or veins, or whatever they were, that could be seen near its shoulders, and it became like a spear when it was suddenly shot out toward him. Extending more than three times the length of the monster's arm, this… tentacle stabbed itself right into the Lieutenant's chest as if it were a blade, sinking into him several inches, past the muscle and bone.

Unable to keep from screaming, Tobias's cries of agony echoed through the lobby while he could feel something being released into his chest, almost a burning-hot liquid, and this feeling only got worse after the tentacle very roughly removed itself from him, retracting back into the monster's sleeve. _Bang! Bang!_ Now the Lieutenant could hear gunshots, and that could only mean that Elza had ignored his orders to get away… since it wasn't like _Vickers_ would stay and fight.

However, instead of seeing someone there shooting the monster, there was a metallic snapping sound from above, followed by a twang as one of the lobby's massive chandeliers came falling down. The monster let out a surprise grunt as the chandelier landed right on top of it, and there was a brief flash of light when the bulbs broke on impact, leaving the lobby slightly darker now… and the monster lying pinned underneath the metal frame.

And then there was Elza; the young woman still leaning over the guardrail of the walkway with her pistol aimed at where the chandelier had been, meaning that she had saved his life. Of course, now the Lieutenant's vision was starting to blur, and he could feel his body temperature rising when he saw Elza, followed distantly by Vickers, come running back down the stairs. Tobias was unable to move or say anything at the moment, only able to watch as the two of them picked up his weapons, before each grabbing one of his arms as well.

Together, Elza and Vickers began dragging him toward the door they had originally planned on escaping through, but they needed to hurry… because even though the Lieutenant's condition felt like it was deteriorating after whatever the monster had done to him… he was still able to see one of its arms start to move underneath the chandelier.


	13. Chapter 13 Relentless Pursuit

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Thirteen: Relentless Pursuit**

After running up the stairs after Vickers, Elza followed the nervous man along the walkway that surrounded the lobby, but stopped when she saw what was happening to Tobias once the monster got a hold of him. It wasn't even a _fight_ , not really, more like watching a small child get beat on by the school bully who had failed a couple grades and was _huge_ because of it. Vickers, however, didn't seem the least bit concerned with the Lieutenant, instead running to the heavy wooden door at the end of the walkway, and trying unsuccessfully to open it.

"Hey, he's getting _hammered_ down there!" The young woman exclaimed, pointing down at the struggle below. "Come on, Vickers, we have to _do_ something!"

"No _way_ am I going back down there!" The nervous man replied, failing again to open the stuck door. "You didn't see what it did to all those mercs… Lieutenant Liquid's _dead_ if he fights that thing, and then it's gonna come after _me_ again, so no thank you!"

Elza was dumbfounded by the complete lack of courage that this man possessed, especially since he was from the S.T.A.R.S. unit, which was _supposed_ to be made up of the best police officers in the state. Well, if he wasn't going to do anything to help Tobias, then it was up to her, just… she had no idea how the hell she was going to do it. That _thing_ down there had just shrugged off shotgun shells, and was tossing the Lieutenant around like he weighed nothing… but that was she noticed how heavy the chandeliers looked.

Her plan was like something out of a movie, and probably wouldn't work, but the young woman tried anyway, taking out her pistol and firing at the light fixture. _Bang! Bang!_ Her first shots missed completely, hitting the far wall, but the third shot grazed the bracket that kept it from falling. The chandelier swung back and forth, a metallic _pop_ being heard as one of the bolts broke, and with the next shot, there was a _twang_ before the whole thing went crashing down.

Thankfully, the falling light fixture had hit its target instead of Tobias, allowing Elza and the reluctant Vickers to run back down the stairs in order to retrieve him. The Lieutenant was in _bad_ shape when they did; sweating and turning pale, with a large wound on his chest like that first dead merc that they found, but between the two of them, they managed to drag him out of the lobby by his arms before the monster was able to recover from the hit, like Vickers was convinced it was going to.

More bodies were discovered as they passed through a small dining room and some kind of common room with a piano, but most of these bodies had already been zombies by the look of them. They had been smashed and pummeled, most of them having significant damage to their skulls, but no bullet wounds, so… so had the _monster_ killed them? Did things like that even _happen_ when it came to these kind of creatures?

It was still raining when Vickers opened a door to the left, quickly soaking the three of them as they walked outside into the Clock Tower's courtyard, and making it more difficult to see, even with the yard lights on. There were tall statues and hedges everywhere, and would have made navigation difficult, if not for the stepping stone walkways that were laid out through the paths.

"Get down!" Vickers whispered harshly, pulling her down behind a hedge. "Don't make a sound!"

For a moment she wasn't sure what was going on, but after hearing a loud growling sound from behind, Elza could see that the monster had not only _recovered_ from the chandelier, but it had followed them all the way to the courtyard. The rain was coming down even harder now, making it difficult to see through the nearly solid sheets of rain that were quickly flooding the grassy areas of the courtyard, but at least now the splashes could be heard each time the monster took a step.

"It walked right past me in the wardrobe before." Vickers whispered softly. "So if we stay still and do nothing, it might miss us."

This was a good idea, but Tobias probably didn't have a lot of time, judging by the way he looked, although there wasn't _nearly_ as much blood seeping out of his chest wound as there had been inside the Clock Tower. In fact, when the young woman forced herself to take a quick look at his wound… regardless of how it nauseated her… it looked like the Lieutenant had barely been _scratched_ … must've gotten lucky when she dropped the chandelier.

Another growl from the monster forced her attention back over to it, where the loud splashes continued as it slowly stomped its way into the center of the courtyard. There was a sewer drain there, and all the rainwater was pooling toward it, causing the water level around the monster's feet to be several inches deep… and the young woman was holding Tobias's collapsed shock baton in her free hand.

"No!" Vickers whispered harshly, after they both looked at the weapon. "No! Just stay quiet, and it will go away!"

"We can't risk it." She whispered back, slipping out from under the Lieutenant's arm. "That thing'll kill us if it finds us, and at least this way we get to make the first move."

The nervous man tried to call her back, but Elza didn't listen; if they were going to get Tobias _and_ themselves out of this place, then the monster needed to be down for at least a little while. So, all the while wondering just what the hell she was thinking, the young woman stepped out from behind the hedge, and was illuminated by blue crackling light when she activated the shock baton… which the monster immediately noticed.

" _Sstarss_." It said, changing direction to walk toward her.

All the while this idea had been playing in her head, Elza thought it was going to be like a scene from a movie where the badass heroin says something witty before destroying her nemesis, but… not only was nothing coming to her mind that she could say, but the young woman was so scared as the monster slowly approached, that she found herself unable to move at all. She was standing on a stone slab, at the edge of the flooded part, but as much as she wanted to act, the sight of this abomination sloshing its way toward her just made her feel… helpless.

Tobias was too injured to do anything, and Vickers was _again_ no help at all, leaving her there to face this thing all on her own… and she couldn't do anything… even when the monster got right up to her. The abomination just stood there for a moment, looking down at her with that horrible, glowing white eye… and then it reached for her. Elza didn't know if it was going to hit her, or toss her, or whatever, but this somehow pulled her out of her paralysis, at least enough to scream and drop the shock baton while falling backwards.

Still active, the electrical weapon landed in the water, making the monster roar as the whole flooded part of the courtyard became electrified. Crackling blue energy began to travel up and down the monster's body, making it shake and growl, smoldering even as the pouring rain continued around it, and then the energy stopped. The weapon was probably dead, but it seemed to have done its job, causing the monster to fall to its knees, swaying back and forth, before landing on its face after a final uttering of _sstarss_.

Elza had done it… her execution had probably been the worst ever in the history of people fighting against monsters, but she had done it, just the same. The S.T.A.R.S. hunter had fallen, and the young woman was still alive, so she grabbed the drained baton, and scrambled back over to the others. Not quite able to speak yet, mostly due to her rapid breathing and heart pounding so fast that she thought it was going to burst… making it impossible for her to tell Vickers what she thought of him at the moment.

Honestly, what kind of a man hides behind a bush while a woman goes out to fight a monster… or _anything_? But even if the young woman had been able to say these things, they would have done her no good, since the nervous man was nowhere to be found. The wounded Tobias was sitting there, propped up against a brick pillar, but Vickers was just… gone. No, wait, not gone… he was coming back from behind another set of hedges that were a lot closer to the courtyard's gate.

"You ran away?!" She exclaimed between labored breaths. "Are you _fucking_ serious right now?! You just left us here to deal with that thing?!"

"Hey, nobody _told_ you to do that, all right?" Vickers snapped as they grabbed Tobias's arms again. "Just like nobody _told_ Lieutenant Liquid to fight the thing instead of sneaking out like I said, so just save the blame game. I told you this thing was a killer, and _you're_ not the one it wants, so let's just get out of here before it gets up again."

Wanting to spend a lot more time scolding him for cowardice, Elza's argument was put on hold when the nervous man said that the monster was going to get up _again_. But after the chandelier, all the bullets that the mercs and Tobias had put into it, _and_ being electrocuted, how was that possible? Better yet, how was it possible for something like that to be sent after specific targets in the first place, or even _understand_ the orders?

"Let go of me." The Lieutenant suddenly said, weakly, trying to pull his arms from them. "You have to go… just go, before it…

Above the wind and heavy rain, a monstrous roar rang out, meaning that the monster was already getting up again, but Elza wasn't about to just leave Tobias behind… that is, until she got a good look at his face. Maybe it had been a trick of the rain or something reflecting off of him, but for a moment it looked like the Lieutenant's eyes had a yellow glow… a glow that vanished when he closed his eyes, but caused both Elza and Vickers to let go of him.

"What the fuck?!" Vickers exclaimed as Tobias fell on his face. "Stay away from me! All of you, just stay the fuck away!"

With that, the nervous man took off running toward the courtyard's main gate, and upon hearing another of the monster's roars, the young woman did the same. It was difficult to run through the pouring rain without slipping, and she felt awful about leaving the Lieutenant there without his best weapons… a fact that she was reminded of when she followed Vickers through the gate he had left open… just in time to hear gunfire from Tobias's pistol.

"Vickers, wait!" Elza called, trying not to lose sight of him. "Wait, don't leave me alone!"

It was so hard to see as she left the Clock Tower behind and ran down the street, that she had run right into a zombie, knocking it down before even realizing what had happened. That meant that there were probably more of them wandering the rain-soaked streets, but now she had completely lost sight of Vickers… and had no idea where she was going as Elza continued down the unfamiliar street.


	14. Chapter 14 A Temporary Edge

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Fourteen: A Temporary Edge**

The burning pain coursing through Tobias's body was starting to lessen, allowing him to get up to his hands and knees in time to see Vickers and Elza running off into the rainstorm. But something was different… where a short time ago, he had only been able to see a few feet in from of his face, he was now able to watch the two of them run out the gate of the Clock Tower's courtyard, as clearly as if the full moon hadn't been obstructed by clouds.

Not only that, but his hearing seemed sharper as well, easily distinguishing between the falling rain, the _clink_ of the gate opening, and the slow, heavy footsteps of the monster when it stood up in the center of the courtyard. It must've been the adrenaline that made the Lieutenant able to get to his feet, the same way that getting attacked before had allowed him to start moving after being in a coma for five months, and since Vickers and Elza needed as much time as they could to get away, Tobias took the pistol out from behind his back.

" _Sstarss_." The monster growled.

 _Bang! Bang!_ It felt like he was aiming a little better than usual, and he could almost see each bullet flying for an instant before hitting exactly where on the monster he had wanted to hit. Kneecap, center chest, between the eyes, or rather, next to its singular _remaining_ eye, each one was perfectly accurate, but as the Lieutenant already knew, this monster wasn't affected by small arms fire. Regardless of taking damage, the abomination was certainly _irritated_ by it, roaring before charging full speed at Tobias.

Although still fast, for some reason it looked like the monster was moving a little slower than usual; remaining in the air for a little bit longer between strides as if being filmed with a slow-motion camera like they did on football games, and allowing the Lieutenant to avoid its first powerful punch by stepping backwards. The blow still caught his arm, sending his pistol flying out of his hand, before the monster's follow up backhand caught him in the chest.

He was knocked off his feet, making a small splash upon hitting the flooded grass, and the monster must've been pretty angry with him by this point, because it brought up its leg, aiming to crush his chest with its foot. Out of reflex, Tobias grabbed onto the massive foot as it came down, and somehow… he was able to keep it from crushing him. The black boot still pressed down, but with nowhere near the amount of strength that had struck him before, and with every ounce of strength that the Lieutenant had no idea he possessed… he started to push it back up.

Only moving the foot up a couple inches, the monster pushed back, roaring in what almost sounded like frustration as it continued trying to crush him, but still somehow being held back by Tobias's shaking arms. The Lieutenant's teeth were clenched, and it felt like he was trying to bench more than his own bodyweight at the gym… until he twisted the foot as hard as he could, putting the monster off balance.

Growling almost in surprise, the monster moved away from Tobias, stumbling sideways before taking a piece out of a brick pillar with its head on the way down. Its growl was muffled by the water when it fell on its face, but less than a second later the monster was getting up again, roaring with rage as it immediately resumed attacking Tobias with even more intensity than before. The Lieutenant had also gotten up by this time, only to duck down in order to avoid the next heavy punch that came, before jumping up and reacting with a punch of his own… that he really hadn't expected to do anything.

However, when his punch connected with the monster's face, its head tilted while the rest of its body reeled backwards, slipping on the wet grass, and falling down once again. Tobias couldn't believe what was happening… it was as if he had suddenly become supercharged with more energy than he knew what to do with, and it felt great, but… but then it was gone. One second he felt like he could literally beat this monster to a pulp, but then his strength faded away, leaving him feeling like he was an addict who was suddenly crashing after using drugs.

The Lieutenant now felt run down and sluggish, as if there was sand in his joints, and the sharpened vision and hearing that he had experienced was gone as well, leaving him just as lost in the storm as he had been before the sudden… temporary boost… whatever the hell it had been caused by. The bad news about all this, was that the monster didn't seem weakened in the slightest, growling as it got up, and then narrowing its eye at him.

Weaponless, and no longer powerful enough to stand a chance, the only option left for Tobias was to run away, and that was what he did, turning heel and sprinting toward the courtyard's gate. The monster's heavy steps could be heard following him, but the Lieutenant didn't dare look back even after passing through the gate that Elza and Vickers had left open, and the only reason that the monster hadn't caught up to him, was that it was having just as much trouble keeping its balance across the wet terrain as he was.

Leaving the Clock Tower behind and running out onto the main street, the Lieutenant didn't realize that the sidewalk ended, causing him to fall over the curb just as the monster was taking another swing at him. White Tobias fell on his face on the pavement, the monster went right past him; the momentum of its own punch causing it to collide with an abandoned car, where its fist easily shattered the window. As bad luck would have it, there must've been another survivor hiding inside the car, because no sooner had the window broken, when a woman's scream rang out, followed by gunfire.

Only a single shot rang out before the growling monster grabbed onto her, ripping the door off its hinges as it pulled her from the car, kicking and screaming as the abomination lifted her up into the air with one hand as if she weighed nothing. Now one of those tentacle appendages was slithering out from under the sleeve of its free arm, poised as if to stab the screaming woman in the face… and it surely _would_ have, if Tobias hadn't been there.

Ending his own plan to escape once he saw that a civilian was in danger, the Lieutenant came running back toward the car, picking up an empty metal trashcan, turning it upside down, and slamming it down over the monster's head, and needing to use all of his own weight in order to get it down over the abomination's massive shoulders. Letting out a muffled roar as it was forced to drop the dark haired woman, the trashcan was already twisting and warping under the monster's strength.

"Come on!" Tobias yelled, grabbing her hand. "We have to get away before it frees itself!"

The woman didn't argue, instead doing her best to keep up with the Lieutenant as he pulled her down the street, nearly losing her balance when he turned sharply down a small alleyway. From behind, there was a sound of aluminum being tossed onto the ground, before a no longer muffled roar reached his ears. Any moment now the monster would be hunting them down, and the alley turned out to be a lot shorter than expected, leaving the two of them with nowhere to go… except…

A few moments later the enraged monster came charging into the alley, but didn't seem to find anything after reaching the wall at the end. Growling, it turned around, focusing its eye through the pouring rain, and growling again when it didn't find the ones that it was after. However, instead of roaring and tearing the place apart to find the two of them, the monster seemed to regain its composure.

" _Sstarss_." It said, turning around and slowly walking out of the alley, most likely resuming its mission.

However, if it had searched the alley a little more thoroughly, the monster might have noticed the large dumpster in the corner, where inside amongst the long forgotten trash bags, were Tobias and the dark haired woman that he had rescued. The smell of rotting garbage was horrific, and water easily flowed down past the hard plastic doors, but it was better than what would have happened to them if they hadn't dove inside.

"It's okay… I think it's gone." The Lieutenant said, allowing himself to relax for the first time in what felt like years. "Holy shit, what a nightmare."

"What the… hell, _was_ that thing?" the dark haired woman replied with a shaky voice. "I've never seen a zombie like that before… yeah, this is my life now… zombies."

Tobias could've tried to explain that the S.T.A.R.S. hunter wasn't a typical zombie, but then again, he didn't really know _what_ it was, beyond fast, powerful, and damn hard to kill. The good news, though, was that they had managed to get away from it… at the cost of the monster being after Vickers and Elza now. Of course, this woman he had saved clearly knew how to use a gun, so maybe she could be of help in saving the young woman… and Vickers, too… if there was time.

"Yeah, I think we're safe for now." The Lieutenant said, peeking through the opening between the doors. "I'm Tobias Liquid, by the way… I'm a…

"I _know_ who you are, Detective Liquid." The dark haired woman replied, struggling to take a cigarette out of her pack and light it. "I just couldn't believe it when I saw your face… you're looking well, for a man who spent the last five months comatose in a hospital bed… damn it, be a gentleman, and help me with this."

Her lighter wasn't working, so Tobias took his own out of his pocket, and finally got a good look at her in the brief orange glow that followed. Shoulder-length hair, tall, slender build, wearing a light weather jacket and jeans… really pretty, too, and _a lot_ closer to his own age than Elza. She finally started to relax after blowing out a puff of smoke, hesitating to lean back on the garbage, but then rolling her eyes and laying back anyway.

"You know, we had orders to call the police the moment you woke up." The dark haired woman continued, taking another puff. "They wanted to crucify you for everything that happened up in the mountains last spring… but then those S.T.A.R.S. people made an even _bigger_ mess in July, and I guess everyone forgot about you. Oh, sorry, you have _no idea_ who I am, do you? My name is Linda Lo… and I'm your Doctor."


	15. Chapter 15 Raccoon Central Station

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Fifteen: Raccoon Central Station**

Nearly blinded by the sheets of water that were pouring down on Raccoon City, Elza continued running down the sidewalk, trying her best to follow the general directions given to her by Tobias, while also avoiding the zombies that kept popping up out of nowhere. To be fair, if the weather had been clear, she would have been able to see them coming just fine, but instead she found herself almost getting grabbed several times.

Mostly by slipping on the wet surfaces, or jumping backwards out of terror, Elza was able to keep away from them, but even after briefly taking shelter underneath an awning so that the water wasn't in her eyes, the young woman was still unable to get a good feel for where she was. The shotgun she had taken from the Lieutenant was empty, discovered when she tried to shoot one of the approaching zombies… so instead she had simply struck it with the stock, and now the weapon was slung over her back.

"Vickers!" She called, honestly forgetting his first name. "Vickers, where are you?!"

There was no reply from the man who was probably halfway across the city by now, making it obvious that the young woman was on her own, since there was _no way_ Tobias could have survived against that monster in his current state… so she was going to have to take care of herself. She still had her pistol, although aiming at _anything_ in the storm before it was right on top of her was nearly impossible, leaving only the expended shock baton to defend herself with.

Collapsed into its carry along form, the metal weapon was still heavy, regardless of whether or not it had power, and she was just getting it into her hand, when there was a growl as one of the zombies came shambling through the wall of water, with arms outstretched to grab her. Swinging wildly with her arm to fend off her attacker, her thumb found a button on the shock baton, causing it to not only open, but to unexpectedly send sparks flying when it struck the zombie's chin.

The zombie stumbled back into the rain, groaning when the falling water made the energy crackling up and down its body even worse, and leaving a burning scent in the air when the abomination collapsed with almost completely blackened flesh. The smell made Elza back up against the door of the building, and thankfully the rain made it harder to see the burned zombie, but how had the weapon worked again after being discharged into the water against that S.T.A.R.S. hunting monster?

Suddenly the door moved behind her, seeming to vanish so that she fell onto her back, and when the young woman scrambled to her feet, the first thing she saw inside the building was that Vickers was standing right behind her. Closing and locking the door as soon as she was out of the way, the nervous man immediately started walking back the way he came, and Elza wanted to start yelling at him for leaving her behind like that, but then stopped when she realized where they were.

The room was vast and wide, designed kind of like a subway station, but with wood décor and windows instead of subway tile. The lights were on in this place; the old fashioned incandescent light fixtures giving off a warm glow that illuminated the seating areas, ticket stations, and the long cable-car that was waiting on the tracks. This was the _Raccoon Street Station_ ; one of the cable-car docks around the city… and exactly where Tobias had planned on them going.

"Why did you run off like that?" Elza finally managed to say. "You just… you just _left us_ there."

"I told you, I'm trying to stay alive." The nervous man replied without stopping. "Something you'd have an easier time doing if you'd stop fighting and just keep moving."

As cowardly as what he was saying sounded, especially after what she and Tobias had done to try and help him, the nervous man had more to say, actually stopping and facing her after her next accusation about leaving her alone in the storm. Vickers explained to her that playing a hero wouldn't get her anything but a faster death, just like what had happened to Task Force Arklay, the other members of S.T.A.R.S., and even those mercenaries back in the Clock Tower.

"I'm _not_ going to die in this city, I'm _not_." Vickers continued, pointing at the young woman. "And if _you_ want to stay alive too, you're gonna have to help me lose that monster."

Elza didn't really have an argument against getting away from that thing, especially since there was no guarantee that it wouldn't kill her immediately after getting the nervous man, and the young woman really didn't want to be alone in this city again. His plan was pretty simple, it turns out; take the cable-car down the Raccoon-Stoneville Line, and keep going until they were out of the city. When all the barricades were put up, there wasn't time to seal up everywhere, so all they had to do was make sure that the tracks were set so they didn't go back downtown, and then make sure that the car was in working order so they wouldn't get stuck.

"I'm a helicopter pilot, so driving this thing should be easy." Vickers explained as they moved up to the car. "But I'm not much of a mechanic, and I don't really know where the track switches are in this station, so…

"So you're hoping that _I_ can make this work for you." Elza finished the sentence for him. "All right, let's check out the car first, since switching the tracks won't do a damn thing if we're out of oil or something."

The nervous man seemed to perk up a bit when she said this, and together they moved into the first of the two cars that were parked at the station. It was nice to know that there was a second car available if this one was no good, making the young woman feel a bit better as they moved into the rear section, where the engine was. Thankfully, every commercial vehicle was required by law to have a manual somewhere inside, and once found, this book made it a lot easier to give the system a look over.

"So, I'm pretty sure that this car will work, that's the good news." Elza said when her check was done. "But there's some corrosion on the main fuse, and the oil's getting like, _really_ low… honestly, I don't think this things good for more than one trip, before it clonks out."

"Then it's a good thing we only need to make _one_ more trip." Vickers replied, almost closing the panel on her fingers. "Now, that _thing's_ still out there looking for me, so we need to check the tracks, and get the hell out of here _right now_."

Suddenly having the urge to use Tobias's shock baton on him, the young woman couldn't help wondering how the hell a _chicken_ like him ever got into the S.T.A.R.S. unit in the first place. Vickers hadn't shown the slightest concern for her _or_ Tobias, and now the nervous man was just standing there, waiting for _her_ to go and find a way to switch the tracks… whereas even if Tobias had no idea what he was doing, he would have still led the way.

"The switch control is probably in the security booth over there." Elza guessed, honestly not sure. "Don't worry, _I'll_ save us."

The nervous man acted like he hadn't even heard that little dig at the end, and the young woman just shook her head while moving toward the enclosed booth. The glass door was unlocked, and there were no bodies inside, so Elza walked in and closed the door, happy to be briefly away from Vickers as she sat down at the desk. The security monitors still worked, allowing her to see that there were zombies wandering around outside in the rain, but only she and Vickers were inside the station.

"Okay, switching controls." She said to herself, looking around. "Switching controls… switching… oh."

She had expected to find some complicated kind of computer system with passwords and sequences, but instead there was a simple switch… however, from what she was seeing, the tracks were set for downtown, and in order to switch them to the Stoneville Line, the switch had to be moved in both this security booth, as well as in the one that was sitting on the other side of the other cable car. Well, that was easy enough, so she flipped the switch, and stepped out of the booth, just in time to gasp when one of the nearby windows exploded inward.

A spray of glass and rain-soaked wind blew into the station, and along with it was something _big_ … something that towered above both her and Vickers when it got to its feet… and was holding something metal on its arm. As the water dripped off of its black long coat onto the floor, the monster raised up the metal device, pointing it toward the wide-eyed, increasingly pale Vickers who was just standing there like a deer in the headlights.

" _Sstarss_." The monster said, pushing the button on its device.

The whole time that Elza watched the monster crash into the station, and even while seeing it aim the device at Vickers, it was only when a small projectile was fired out of it, that the young woman realized that the monster was holding some kind of _rocket launcher_. But how could some kind of virus-driven abomination have such a weapon, or _any_ kind of weapon for that matter? The very idea of something as lethal and horrible as the S.T.A.R.S. hunter having weapons was just… it was just _stupid_.

However, as stupid as the idea was, that didn't stop Vickers from having to dive out of the way so that the missile didn't hit him. Throwing himself on the floor, the missile sailed right over the nervous man, slamming into the wall at the other end of the station with a loud _ka-boom!_ If there was _any_ doubt about the weapon really being a rocket launcher, it was put to rest when the smoke cleared, leaving a massive hole in the wall, and Elza was about to run to help Vickers… when she saw that he was gone.

The next thing she saw was the doors to the first cable-car closing after the nervous man ran inside, and as much as the young woman didn't want to believe that he would abandon her yet again, the cable-car started to move a moment later. Unfortunately for Vickers, Elza hadn't been able to switch the tracks over to the Stoneville Line, meaning that he was headed downtown on what was probably a one-way trip, given the state of the car's engine... and worse yet, the monster was reloading its weapon.

" _Sstarss_." It growled, closing the rear hatch, and aiming toward the slowly accelerating cable-car.

Thankfully, the car exited the station and vanished into the rain before the monster could shoot, causing it to growl almost angrily as its target got away. Of course, now the young woman had been left alone to deal with the monster all by herself… but then again, she had learned a thing or two from watching what it had done before, and like Vickers had said… _she_ wasn't the one it was after. The monster growled again before lowering the weapon, and then it glared at Elza before walking toward the tracks to continue the pursuit.

"Good luck, Vickers." She whispered as the monster slowly followed the cable-car's route into the storm.


	16. Chapter 16 The Second Car

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Sixteen: The Second Car**

While waiting for a break in the rain, and also making sure that the monster was gone for the moment, Tobias had become naturally curious about the revelation that Linda Lo, the survivor who just happened to be hiding in that car at the right time, was also the doctor who had been treating him since Operation Arklay went bad. Apparently, she was some kind of biological specialist that Umbrella brought in from their branch office in Chicago, after detecting some odd things in the Lieutenant's cell-cultures.

"The gas was called _P-Epsilon_." Linda explained, taking another puff of her cigarette. "I developed it as a kind of universal antigen for the suppression of biological contaminants, such as diseases, chemical spills, and even _viruses_. The idea was to disburse it in the air to canvas contaminated city blocks… so naturally I came _running_ when I heard that a single person had survived after absorbing more than a _metric ton_ of the stuff."

"Honestly, I don't remember most of it." Tobias replied, thinking back. "There was a monster… a person, transformed into something awful right before my eyes, and then one of its claws got me. Stabbed me through the chest, and then the gas came out the wound, and that's all I remember."

The doctor started saying something about his account explaining the strange mutations in the P-Epsilon cells, but not how the gas had become permanently bonded to every single cell in the Lieutenant's body. It had always been difficult to do any real examinations on the bonded particles, since they had been rendered mostly dormant… but now that Tobias was awake, maybe there would be opportunity for further study… if they made it out of the city, that is.

"All right, since we've got a minute, how have you been feeling?" Linda continued, moving a little closer to him. "Have you felt or noticed anything different between before you went into the coma and now?"

"Come to think of it, yeah, there _is_ something different." The Lieutenant answered, remembering the times he had been attacked. "At first I thought it was adrenaline, you know, the whole fight or flight thing… but then I got stabbed by that _big_ thing, and for a while it felt like I was some kind of a _superhero_."

As ridiculous as this notion sounded, Tobias explained how for a minute or so he had been stronger, faster, hearing distant sounds, and seeing clearly through the pouring rain… then it had all worn off. When the temporary boost faded, he explained that he had felt like a crashing drug addict, but then discovering that the wounds that should have been fatal… had been almost completely healed. If a suspect had come into the RPD with a story like that, the Lieutenant would've tossed him in the tank to sleep it off… but Dr. Linda Lo wasn't laughing.

"Detective Liquid… what you're describing." She said, seeming nervous and excited at the same time. "P-Epsilon works by breaking down and burning off infected cells in the same manner as when a person eats a hamburger, but then the byproduct is released harmlessly into the air, but… if that byproduct is trapped inside your cells, then…

Tobias wanted her to continue, but the doctor replied that without running some tests, there was no way to be sure what was happening to him. Unfortunately, the hospital was a no-go, but once the Lieutenant told her about the plan to use the cable-car station, she seemed to get an idea. Even though it would mean taking even longer to get to the RPD, Linda suggested that they use the Stoneville Line in order to get to the Raccoon City Community College.

"The college has a new biology lab." The doctor explained. "It's not exactly state of the art… Community College, and all that… but they've got equipment for running blood tests, and I _really_ need to certain sequence on you, so let's go."

Without waiting any longer for a break in the storm, or even checking to see if there were any zombies shambling around, the dark haired woman climbed out of the dumpster, causing Tobias to have to spit out his cigarette in order to follow her. The rain was starting to let up just a little, enough for him to see that Linda's movements were starting to attract attention. A lot of attention, in fact, but the doctor still rambled on to herself about the upcoming experiments, seeming to be unaware of the danger around her.

Without the temporary rush of power, or any of his weapons, the only thing that the Lieutenant could think of was to start running. Grabbing the doctor's hand as he passed by, the startled dark haired woman was nearly pulled off her feet. As the rain continued to slowly let up, the sound of groaning zombies was becoming audible, with the sound of more and more shambling, sloshing footsteps joining in, the further they went.

"I'm glad I didn't wear heels." Linda commented, trying to keep up with him. "Can we slow down just a… wait, never mind."

This woman sure had a strange personality for a doctor, especially an Umbrella scientist, at that, but she didn't seem to mean any harm. Well, okay, if she had any malicious plans, Linda was doing a good job of hiding them, and not just because she was good looking. She seemed more like, one of those people who would get overly focused on a single thing, and neglect everything else, even when her life was at stake.

Thankfully, the cable-car station wasn't too far away, but Tobias got the feeling that something was wrong when he saw that one of the windows had been broken. That, and the building seemed to shake a little during a small explosion of some kind… just before a cable-car came rolling out of the tunnel. Immediately hitting the first junction that would take the car into the downtown area, the Lieutenant's first thought was that Elza and Vickers thought he was dead and carried on.

" _Sstarss_." A deep, raspy voice said, stopping his thoughts as the monster walked out of the tunnel to follow the car.

Putting a hand over Linda's mouth and pulling her behind a corner to keep out of sight, Tobias waited until the monster could no longer be seen in the rain, before letting the doctor go. Well, the monster was gone, as was the cable-car, but there was still a chance that the zombies would catch wind of them again, so the Lieutenant led the way up to the nearest entrance, which was the broken window. Enough distance had been put between them and the shambling zombies for the two of them to enter the station undetected, and Tobias was genuinely surprised to see Elza standing by the track by herself.

"You didn't go with Vickers?" He asked, startling her.

Instead of answering, the young woman just stood there wide-eyed for a second, before running over and hugging the Lieutenant, almost knocking him over in the process. It looked like she was trying not to cry as she told him everything that had happened with the monster showing up and Vickers abandoning her, but Elza ended up doing so anyway. Poor kid, Tobias thought as he hugged her, must've been terrifying, thinking he was dead, and then being left alone with that S.T.A.R.S. hunter.

"We were going to switch to the Stoneville Line." The young woman continued, wiping her eyes and stepping away. "I got half of it done, but then that monster… who is this?"

"Dr. Linda Lo." The dark haired woman answered. " _His_ doctor, actually… nice to meet you."

Now it was Tobias's turn to explain a couple things, quickly recounting how he had ran into her during the fight with the monster, and Elza gave him a funny look when he got to the part about hiding in the dumpster. However, Vickers' plan to switch to the Stoneville Line was the same as theirs, but instead of trying to leave the city with it, a stop at the college was needed for the blood test.

"I'd really rather just get out of Raccoon City." Elza said honestly, once she had been told the reason for it. "But if it can help you, I guess it's the right thing to do… I'll check on the other cable-car, if you can hit the other switch."

The switch was beyond the second car, and changing lines from Downtown to Stoneville was literally as easy as pulling a lever. With a _clunk_ of the switch, and a _clack_ of the rail, the remaining car was all set to head toward Stoneville, a possible avenue of escape if the college didn't work out. Still, part of the Lieutenant wanted to immediately head downtown, since that would bring him closer to the RPD… that, and even though Vickers was a coward, he didn't deserve to have to face that monster alone.

"Okay, well I've got good news for once." The young woman reported, wiping off her hands on her pant legs as she came back out. "This car's in _a lot_ better shape than the other one, so there's really nothing stopping us from heading out… so long as the track is clear."

"Great, so we can set out." Linda added happily. "I need to run that test on you before something happens, like you getting killed."

Elza gave Tobias another weird look after the dark haired woman said that, and in response the Lieutenant simply shrugged before following her onto the cable-car. The doctor was muttering to herself, already sitting down on one of the side benches and crossing her legs by the time that he and Elza entered, and now it was time to say goodbye to this part of the city. However, Tobias was not a pilot, and therefore not used to operating complicated controls like Vickers.

"You have no idea how to drive this, do you?" The young woman asked, walking up to the controls.

"Nope." The Lieutenant replied, looking over the control panels. "Do you?"

The young woman's suddenly reply that she did, came as a shock, that is, until Elza said that it was because she had read the manual in the other car while checking on it for Vickers. Still took her a second to find the brake release, and then the throttle, but after that there was a slight vibration in the floor when the cable-car started to move. Slowly they exited the station tunnel, allowing the only moderately falling rain to soak the windshield just as they hit the junction that went the opposite way as the first car.

"Do you think Vickers will be okay?" Elza asked, looking toward the downtown track as it got further away.

"Well, if there's anything he knows, it's how to take care of himself." Tobias replied with an unsure sigh as the car accelerated. "He'll be fine if he makes it to the RPD."


	17. Chapter 17 RCCC

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Seventeen: RCCC**

For a city that was most barricaded into restricted zones, the track for the cable-car was pretty clear, allowing them to pretty effortlessly move from near the Clock Tower, east down Raccoon Street until having to cross a decent size river. Every now and then a _crunch_ was heard along with groans when a zombie or two would get in the way. Maybe the barricades hadn't been properly planned, or maybe there simply hadn't been time or resources to block off the entire city, since who would _honestly_ think a whole city needed to be blocked?

"We'll be coming up on _Good Street_ soon." Tobias commented once they were past the river. "If the line is this clear all the way, we should be able to stop there, move into the campus on foot, and then use the car again when we move on."

"Okay… so what's the plan when we get to the college?" Elza asked, slowing the car down so they could look for Good Street. "Are we just going there to run this test and then leave?"

"Not if we get lucky." Linda suddenly chimed in. "We have to run the blood test, certainly, but then we need to try and get the results out of the city even if something happens to us."

That last part didn't make the young woman feel very good about what they were about to do, but at the same time it was probably a good thing to be reminded about the real danger of their situation. However, the most ironic part of this whole nightmare was when Elza brought the cable-car to a stop just after Good Street, leaving them sitting in front of an open campus; there were trees scattered along the brick walkways, a small iron fence around the whole property, and several buildings that could be seen spread around while the rain finally came to a stop, with a sign right in front that read:

 _RACCOON CITY COMMUNITY COLLEGE_

" _cognita est clavis ad vitam"_

 _Est. 1972_

Elza just stood there, looking at the sign for several seconds as the rain stopped completely, and remembering the thoughts that had been going through her mind in the days before getting on her motorcycle and setting off for Raccoon City. The young woman had been so excited about finally having enough money in the bank to quit her stupid job, and move out of her parents' house, pretty much leaving everything she knew behind.

Her mind had been filled with _finally_ starting her own life, although years behind her high school friends; making new friends, working toward her dreams… getting a boyfriend… going to parties… then making poor decisions _at_ those parties. However, it turns out that fate had a different sort of adventure in mind for the young woman, and honestly it felt kind of cruel for her to end up at the same place that she had originally set out for.

" _Learning is the key to life_." Tobias said, also looking out at the sign. "That's the motto of _RCCC_ … sorry that coming out here didn't work out like you planned, kid."

"No, it's all right." Elza replied, trying to hide her sadness. "I mean, a zombie nightmare's a pretty good reason for not getting into school, right?"

They both had a short laugh at this, including Linda, who surprisingly laughed right along with them, before turning serious again once she stood up. Now that they were in front of the college campus, the doctor explained to them that they would need to get into the school's science building, but of course, everything was probably locked up tight. Therefore, the science building's master key was what they were after before anything else.

"There might be a key in one of the senior professor's offices." Linda suggested. "But we'll have to find a campus directory in order to find it… which means, finding a key to the administration building."

"Maybe we can find the administration building key in the security office." Elza suggested. "But then… where are we going to find a key to the security office? Do you think we should just break a window or something… or would the alarms draw the zombies to us? Hey, maybe we can find a power box, and cut off the alarms."

"Are you two serious right now?" Tobias asked, making both of them stop and look at him. "Alarm boxes? Running around trying to find separate keys? How about this? Can either of you tell me who is the one person in any setting who can go anywhere at any time, has complete access to everything, and no one ever questions?"

The young woman had to admit that she was stumped by his question, but the doctor immediately answered that it had to be the _Dean of the college_. This made total sense, Elza thought as she considered it; the Dean would have a master key to everything, would be allowed to go anywhere he wanted, and no one would dare to question him, for fear of getting fired. However, once this possibility was said, the Lieutenant simply shook his head.

"It's the _janitor_." Tobias explained after they couldn't come up with anything else. "Now, there's a janitor's closet inside _each one_ of these buildings, including a couple of external ones, meaning that all we have to do is pick the lock on _one door_ , and then we can grab the spare set of master keys to the _whole college_."

Elza had to admit that she would have never thought of that, but the Lieutenant's idea sounded a lot better than running around a large set of buildings like an idiot, trying to find _one_ key. So after returning his shock baton, which Tobias was happy to see was recharging itself, the three of them stepped off the cable-car. The night sky was clearing up, allowing the moon to shine through, and the water on the grass and walkways helped to reflect the light.

There were plenty of post-lights along the walkways, and each building around campus had exterior lighting as well, so it was easy for them to see while moving further away from the safety of the cable-car. The young woman still wished that there were some more shells left inside the currently useless shotgun on her back… well, she could still _hit_ things with it, she supposed, and her situation was better than Linda, who had apparently lost her only weapon when the monster attacked.

"Let's try one of these smaller classroom buildings." Tobias said as they moved down the walkway. "If I remember right, those have the exterior janitor's closets."

An illuminated letter _C_ could be seen as they turned onto a walkway that passed between two buildings, and after turning again so that they were under cover of the C building's exterior walkway, the first door that they came to was labeled: _JANITOR_. The door handle was flimsy, and its built in keyhole looked like it was about to fall out, making it pretty easy for the Lieutenant to open it… a skill that Elza was going to have to ask him to teach her sometime… along with a few other things.

"Excellent." Linda commented once he had retrieved the keys from a nail on the wall inside the closet. "The science building is back around this other classroom building, and down the north driveway of the college."

Well, they had the keys, meaning that there was no need to break into the administration building _or_ the security office, leaving the three of them to go back around to the main walkway. Passing another, slightly larger classroom building that was marked _A_ , they headed down the north drive just like the doctor had said, toward a building that was standing all by itself, with three floors… arguably the largest building at the small college.

"I'm surprised we haven't seen any zombies yet." Elza said as they neared the building. "It's almost like this whole place was just abandoned or…

Suddenly the young woman's words were interrupted as the sound of growling reached her ears, but not zombie growling… this sounded more like an animal… one that was moving around the shadows on the other side of the driveway. It walked on all fours, making Elza think about the tongue-creature at the hospital, but when it entered the light from a nearby post, she saw that it was a dog. At first the sight of something normal relaxed her, but after looking again, the relaxation turned to anxiety when she saw that the dog was missing patches of both fur _and_ the skin underneath.

"Uh… Tobias?" She asked nervously as another dog joined it… and then another.

"Don't lose eye-contact with it." The Lieutenant replied quietly. "No loud noises, no sudden moves, and whatever you do, keep walking at this pace like you're not scared and nothing's wrong."

His advice sounded like something that would be said on _Animal Planet_ , so the young woman tried to stay calm while walking like he said… but this became a little more difficult when a third dog joined the pack… and then a fourth… and a fifth. Still, with as frightening as the idea of virus infected dogs was, the Lieutenant's plan was working… the dogs were growling with eyes locked on them… but they weren't advancing… but then a scream rang out.

It took Elza a second to realize that the scream had come from Linda, who appeared to have just noticed the dogs, and then taken off running toward the building. The dark haired woman probably hadn't noticed the dogs at first, too busy planning the test to run on Tobias, but now as if it was the signal the dogs had been waiting for, the whole pack started toward them. Grabbing the pistol from Elza's belt and pushing her toward the building, she heard the Lieutenant fire two shots at the dogs, resulting in a sharp _yelp_ before starting to run, himself.

"Go, go, go!" Tobias yelled, pushing her ahead and handing her the keys. "Get the door open!"

The young woman took the keys, and then sprinted as fast as she could, following Linda, who was running even faster. _Bang!_ Another gunshot from behind, followed by another _yelp_ , and a moment later Elza had joined the doctor at the heavy glass doors of the science building. Fumbling with the keys, and her anxiety not helped by Tobias's constant yelling for her to get the door open, the young woman finally found the key that was marked with an _S_ , for _science_ , she hoped.

Fumbling again to get it into the lock, there was a hard _click_ when she turned it, allowing Elza to feel a rush of air-conditioning when the heavy door opened. Of course, there was no time to enjoy it as the Lieutenant collided with her, shoving her and Linda into the building, before literally slamming the door shut in the remaining dog's faces. Of course, after a couple seconds of catching their breath, even _more_ dogs began to join the pack, moving around outside as if searching for a way in.


	18. Chapter 18 The Science Building

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Eighteen: The Science Building**

 _They had escaped into the science building, where they thought it was safe… yet…_

This new science building was truly a sight to behold; marble floors shined to an almost mirror finish, metal light fixtures that bathed the place in soft light, and a stone spiral staircase in the center of the lobby that looked like a DNA sequence as it went up to the second floor. However, according to Linda, the laboratory that they needed was on the _third_ floor, meaning that they would have to either find another stairwell, or use the lobby's elevator which they discovered to be locked.

"Hmm, doesn't look like there's an elevator key on this ring." Tobias said, searching through the ones from the janitor's closet. "With our luck, they outsource elevator repair to a company."

"Then we'll have to take the stairs." The doctor said, starting toward the center spiral staircase. "Nothing's more important than proving my theories about you, now let's go."

With her footsteps echoing across the marble floor, Linda started up the DNA staircase, with the Lieutenant following after, and Elza bringing up the rear. The staircase ended at a set of glass doors that slid open automatically, and now the three of them were at a three-way junction in a much narrower hallway. Directly ahead was a carpeted area that looked like a small office suite, off to the right was a set of restrooms and what looked like doors to classrooms on both sides, and off to the left was a darkened area where it seemed that all lighting had failed.

"Why do I get the feeling that the stairs are down _there_?" Elza asked, looking nervously down the dark hall.

"Because they probably are." Tobias replied, taking out his shock baton. "I'll go first, you two stay right behind me, okay?"

"Just get us to the stairs, Detective." Linda ordered sternly. "If we can confirm what's happening to you, there might be a possibility of a cure from your cells, and that could save hundreds, if not thousands of lives, so let's go."

The doctor was certainly driven, but in her case the obsession with her own work was giving her tunnel-vision that was constantly putting herself and others in danger. The Lieutenant agreed that this test of hers was necessary, and if it could make a cure for the virus ravaging the city, then great, but after the test was done, he was going to have to sit down and have a talk with her about staying focused on the big picture.

Extending the shock baton, and using it like a torch, the crackling blue energy lit up the immediate area of the darkened hallway, allowing the three of them to move forward. Step by step, with the sound of their shoes echoing on the tiled floor, Tobias led them past a few darkened classroom doors, before discovering that a door labeled _Mechanical_ had been left slightly open. Holding up his hand for the others to stay back, the Lieutenant very carefully started pushing the door open with a drawn out _creak_ … only to gasp as a zombie in overalls came charging toward him.

Dropping the shock baton as they collided, Tobias was knocked off balance, allowing the zombie to drive him back into the opposite wall, where his back slammed against one of the classroom doors, knocking it open. Of course, this meant that both he and the zombie stumbled into the darkened classroom, knocking over a desk as they fell to the floor, and now the Lieutenant had his arm underneath the zombie's neck, trying to keep it from biting into his face.

The abomination was drooling and snarling as it tried to get closer, all the while Tobias was reaching for the pistol he had taken from Elza. It took a bit of effort, and he was just getting the barrel up underneath the zombie's chin, when there was a flash of blue light as sparks flew across the classroom. The zombie groaned and went limp as the crackling blue energy traveled up and down its body, but thankfully Tobias was able to kick it away quickly, keeping his own electrocution to a minimum.

Once he was free, there was another flash of light and sparks as Linda struck the creature a second time, blackening some of its rotting skin, and making some bubbled, boiling blood seep from its mouth. Tobias had to admit that he was impressed by the dark haired woman's reaction to this attack, but after pressing his foot down on the zombie's skull hard enough for the brains to splatter out onto the floor, he thought it was best to get the weapon back from her.

"Thank you… for the rescue." The Lieutenant said, putting the pistol away before slowly taking the shock baton back from her. "Maybe Elza could learn a thing or two from you, huh, Elza? Uh… Elza?"

"Yes, I can't believe how effective that weapon of yours is." Linda replied as Tobias moved back into the hallway. "What? Oh, _Elza_ … where did she go?"

That was a damn good question, but unfortunately when he moved back into the darkened hallway, the answer did not immediately present itself… nor did it when he checked the open mechanical room, the other empty classrooms, or anywhere else all the way back to the DNA staircase. The young woman wasn't inside either of the bathrooms, there were no fresh foot impressions across the thick carpet of the office suit, and she was nowhere to be found in the illuminated side of the second floor either… it was as if she had simply vanished.

"Elza!" The Lieutenant called. "Elza, where are you?!"

"Detective, we do _not_ have time for this." Linda interrupted, grabbing him by the arm. "That girl _knew_ what we were here to do, and she picked a _fine_ time to run off by herself, didn't she? Well, if she wants to waste time playing hide and seek, that's on her, because you and I have work to do."

With that, the doctor started back toward the darkened hallway, obviously knowing damn well that Tobias couldn't just leave her alone, and thereby risk losing _both_ people in his group. Well, there was a small chance that Elza would have gone ahead up to the stairwell, even though it wouldn't have been a logical move without her own light source, but wherever the young woman had gone, Tobias was unable to stop Linda from continuing on toward the stairwell.

He couldn't just knock her out, since the doctor was needed for the possibility of making a cure from his blood or whatever she was going to test, and now that they were entering the stairwell, it was too dangerous to call for Elza, since the noise had a chance of attracting any other creatures that might be inside the building. Tobias gave his best argument, though, trying to convince the doctor that they needed to find Elza before doing anything else, but she was just not having it.

"Dr. Lo, stop where you are." He ordered sternly, aiming the pistol at her. "Now, we've got a member of the team missing, and cure or no cure, I am _not_ about to leave her behind. So, we're going back downstairs in order to look for her, and _then_ we can get back to your test."

Instead of answering right away, Linda turned around and walked back down the stairs so that she was standing right in front of him, before leaning forward and putting her forehead up against the barrel of his pistol. Now, for the first time focused on something besides her work, the dark haired woman locked eyes with him, almost _daring_ Tobias to pull the trigger, but he wasn't going to unless there wasn't any other choice.

Suddenly the doctor brought her knee up, hitting the grip of the pistol so that it was flung out of his hands, and of course the only thing he could do was reach for it, allowing Linda to bring her foot up and kick him in the chest, before catching the pistol herself. As for the Lieutenant, he stumbled back down the stairs to where he fell against the wall on the previous landing, sinking down to the floor.

This sudden burst of martial ability from the previously almost air-headed doctor had caught him completely off guard, and the smack to his head against the wall left him stunned long enough for her to walk back down to the landing, kneel down in front of where he was slumped, and put the pistol up under his chin. Now he was conflicted about the situation… on one hand wanting to break this woman's hands… and on the other hand… finding her even more attractive than he had before.

"I respect your loyalty to your team, Detective." Linda said calmly. "But there are far more important things at stake than a girl who ran off. Now, you are going to get up and follow me up to the labs on the third floor, and then _after_ the test is finished, we can try to find that girl, do you understand?"

"Sure, I understand." The Lieutenant replied, not taking his eyes off hers. "But if you don't drop that pistol right now, some of the blood on my hand is going to drip on you."

Now, Tobias had never known much about science, but from what he understood about viruses, just because he was somehow immune, didn't mean his blood wasn't infected… meaning serious trouble for anyone that he bled on, for instance. The dark haired woman understood this, gasping when she looked down and saw that a drop was forming from a cut on his hand… and he was holding it right above her exposed skin so that if anything disturbed it, it was sure to fall.

Naturally, Linda's only course of action was to drop the pistol so that she would be able to move away without making the drop fall, resulting in a _clack_ when the weapon hit the landing. The Lieutenant picked it up, getting to his feet at the same time that she was starting to back away up the stairs, but then he stopped her by grabbing the doctor by the front of the shirt with his uncut hand. She gasped when he pulled her back to the landing, spinning her around and shoving her up against the wall, now putting the pistol up under _her_ chin.

"Elza could be _anywhere_ by now, _if_ she's still alive." He said quietly, his face just inches from hers. "So we're going to run your little test, and then we're going to search this building from top to bottom until we find her, do _you_ understand?"

Linda nodded, and then the Lieutenant let go of her, motioning with the pistol for her to stay in front of him as they started back up the stairs. There was only one more landing to go before the door to the third floor would be in sight, and thankfully there had been no more sightings of monsters… of course, that didn't mean that Elza was safe… didn't mean that she was in danger, either… it was just so frustrating to not know what…

"Were you _really_ going to shoot me, Detective?" Linda asked, interrupting his thoughts. "Or was all that for show?"

"Shoot you? No." Tobias replied as they kept walking. "But honestly, after that stunt you pulled back there… if I wasn't so worried about infecting you, I'd probably be _screwing_ you right now. Too bad there's no time, right? Keep walking."


	19. Chapter 19 Dr Hartwell

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Nineteen: Dr. Hartwell**

"Just get us to the stairs, Detective." Linda ordered sternly. "If we can confirm what's happening to you, there might be a possibility of a cure from your cells, and that could save hundreds, if not thousands of lives, so let's go."

Elza was starting to get annoyed with the doctor's entire personality as they started down the hallway, using the light from Tobias's shock baton as a guide, while he carefully checked every door along the way. So far it had appeared that they were alone in the science building, but then from out of a maintenance room, another zombie suddenly attacked, startling the young woman so badly that she took a step backwards… before feeling something strike her in the back of the head.

While the Lieutenant and the doctor were forced into one of the classrooms by the attacking infected man, Elza's vision went blurry as she fell backwards, finding herself unable to voluntarily move or speak. Expecting to impact with the overly shined floor while the whole world seemed to tilt onto its side, she was instead surprised to find that someone had caught her… someone who quickly lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder like a bag.

The young woman's head was spinning, pounding, and causing her ears to ring to the point where she could no longer hear the combat taking place with the zombie, nor was there a single sound that reached her while her assailant hurriedly carried her back down the DNA staircase to the first floor lobby. Each bounce from the stairs made her feel like she was going to pass out, but finally the awful pain stopped… when the man carrying her stopped in front of the locked elevator.

Unfortunately for Elza, her assailant seemed to have a key, which he took out of his pocket with his free hand, before inserting it into the lock. Moments later there was a quiet _ding_ as the metal door slid open, allowing her to be carried into the car before the doors closed again, and even though the young woman had been unable to see what button he pressed, there was an unmistakable feeling of downward movement once the car started.

Who was this person? Elza thought, between the pain in her head and the fear that came with being rendered so helpless. Why had he struck her in the back of the head? Where was he taking her? At least now she was able to form a few complete thoughts by the time the elevator came to a stop, but the dizziness and pain were still keeping her body from responding while her assailant carried her into a corridor that was nowhere near as nice as the ground floor had been.

A switch was flipped, causing a row of incandescent light bulbs, each in its own enclosed metal cage, to come on, revealing that she was now being carried down a long passage. The floor was bare concrete, and there were several different sizes of pipes running along the ceiling, but no windows, making it obvious that Elza had been taken into one of the building's basements. After stepping out of the car, the man carrying her turned around so that he could use the key to lock the elevator once again, making it unlikely that Tobias or Linda would think to come down there to search for her.

The ringing in her ears was starting to fade during the long walk down the narrow passage, allowing her to start hearing the sound of footsteps, along with the turning of a doorknob, before being taken into a room that was very dark. Another sound could be heard now; sort of like animals quietly whimpering, but there was still just enough ringing in her ears to keep her from identifying it, and then her efforts were stopped when her attacker dropped her roughly onto some kind of a table or desk with a loud, echoing _bam!_

"And here we are." The man said, walking away to grab something. "Now you hold real still."

Now there was some kind of metallic rattling sound, and the dizziness was wearing off just enough for Elza to be able to start sitting up, when the man suddenly backhanded her hard enough to make her see stars even before her head impacted the table. The young woman groaned as the pain started up again, leaving her disoriented enough so that she was only dimly aware of something metal being clamped tightly around her wrists and neck. Then there was a pulling sensation, first bringing her arms upward, and then choking her a little while forcing the young woman to her feet.

"I told you to hold still." The same voice scolded as she was choked again. "You little brats are all the same, but I'll fix you… oh, I'll fix you."

Once she was standing, the pulling continued until she was on her tiptoes with her arms as high above her head as they would go. The shotgun had also been taken from her at some point, not that it was loaded, nor was she in any position to use it even if it had been… and the impacts she had taken to the head left her vision blurry again when her assailant turned on the lights. There was something else in the room with them, but Elza couldn't quite tell what it was, not until her attacker held something under her nose, and everything became clear as the burning scent of smelling salts assaulted her brain.

"Good, you're finally awake." He said as Elza's vision focused on a middle aged man with graying hair and glasses. "That's what's wrong with students these days; you think you can just sleep your way through life, don't you?"

The young woman started to say something, but never got the chance when he pulled back his fist and slugged her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of Elza, and choking her when she fell against the chains. She now realized that it was a set of chains on her wrists and neck, looped around the ceiling rafters that was not only restraining her, but forcing her to remaining standing on her tiptoes unless she wanted to be choked… and then a knot formed in Elza's stomach when she realized that she was not alone.

About a dozen others were in the basement as well; pretty young women around her age, all chained up in the same manner as Elza, and some of them wearing clothes with the RCCC logo. All of them had bruises forming on their faces and necks, a few black eyes, and a couple of them whose shirts had been removed had what looked like whip marks on their backs. All of these girls had been heavily abused, the young woman thought as the reality of her situation dawned on her… some of them had been partially stripped as well… and now Elza was there with them.

"Good evening, class." Her attacker said, turning toward the others. "We have a new student joining our ranks today… be a good girl, and introduce yourself."

"What the _fuck_ is this?!" Elza yelled, seeming to startle the other girls more than her attacker. "What…

Again he stopped her words, this time by putting one hand over her nose and mouth so tightly that it hurt, and stepped onto the young woman's toes so that she couldn't try to move away. The chains kept her from fighting back, no matter how hard she pulled on them, and now she couldn't breathe. Her attacker kept this up until she started to get tunnel vision, and then let go, but only let her draw in half a gasping breath before punching her in the stomach again.

"Fine, I'll go first, if you're shy." Her attacker continued as she fell against the chains once again. "I am Dr. Steven Hartwell, Professor of Humanities here at Raccoon City Community College… or at least I _was_ … until little _Stephanie_ over here decided to start making _wild_ accusations about me to the Board of Trustees."

Now appearing to lose some of his composure, Dr. Hartwell walked over to the left wall of the room, where what looked like items belonging to the girls had been piled up. There were purses, some clothes, and other things, but after opening up one of the purses, all of the girls started to whimper when he took out a pink stun-gun. The girl in the center of the room had marks on her exposed torso that looked like electrical burns, and this was verified when there was a crackling _tick-tick-tick_ as Dr. Hartwell stuck it into her side for a moment.

"A _pervert_ , she called me." He continued, making Stephanie cry out each time the stun-gun was used. "A _stalker_ who made her feel unsafe to leave her dorm, she said to the Board. A _rapist_ who pressured young girls into lewd acts, she said… lewd acts, _indeed_. Tell the truth, Stephanie… you were a slut… you tempted men with your body, and played innocent just to hurt me, while sneaking down here into Basement Two with your boyfriend… still think he can protect you? Let's bring him out."

At the very mention of this, all of the girls started freaking out and screaming, which gave Elza hope that Tobias would hear them… but then some reality entered her mind. If they were down in Basement Two, then there was no way for anyone to hear them through two levels on the ground floor, let alone the second where the others were located. This meant that the screaming wouldn't help, but the young woman had the urge to scream a little herself when Dr. Hartwell opened the door of what looked like a storage closet.

"Ah, here he is." The professor announced happily as he brought something out. "Did you miss him, Stephanie? Do you want to give him a kiss?"

It was a zombie, one that was in a full set of shackles like what would be used for dangerous prisoner transport, complete with a long metal snare around its neck, which Dr. Hartwell was using to control its movements. The zombie's only other distinguishing feature was a long gash across its neck where a knife was still sticking out. Now laughing as he moved the restrained zombie around the room, the professor became more and more amused each time one of the girls screamed when it got close to them.

"Aw, don't worry, Stephanie, I didn't forget you." He taunted, bringing the zombie back over to her before making a show of letting go of the snare. "Oops."

Stephanie screamed as the zombie went for her, sinking its teeth into the side of her neck, cutting off her own scream as blood began to drip down onto the floor, but replacing it with all of the others resuming their screams. Blood was now pooling down on the floor, and Stephanie had stopped moving several seconds before the professor regained control of the zombie, forcing it to stumble its way back into the closet, where he grabbed the knife and yanked it out of its throat before slamming the door shut.

"Poor Stephanie." Dr. Hartwell said, mocking sadness as he walked over and stuck the knife deeply into her shoulder. "We'll just leave that there in case she becomes unmanageable later… now, where were we? Ah, yes… the new girl."


	20. Chapter 20 Tracking a Killer

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty: Tracking a Killer**

"How long is all this gonna take?" Tobias asked, looking back toward the room's exit. "I need to go back for Elza."

"It will take as long as it takes, Detective." Linda replied, watching as the first cartridge filled with his blood. "Now hold still."

Now on the third floor of the science building, gaining access to the desired laboratory had been easy, but as the doctor explained it, the most difficult part was simply _obtaining_ blood samples from the Lieutenant. Even if he, himself, had some kind of immunity and showed no symptoms of viral infection, that didn't mean that he wasn't a carrier who could just as easily infect others, so Linda took the time to put on scrubs, a mask, and gloves before even _starting_ the process.

"I need to take several samples." She explained, filling another cartridge. "And then I need to subject them to different stimuli in order to discover the effects of your fusion with the P-Epsilon gas."

Tobias didn't care about the details, since he wasn't a scientist, and he was about to again urge her to move faster… when the Lieutenant noticed that his blood, instead of the normal red color, had taken on a slightly yellowed tint. Linda guessed that this was a result of the green-colored gas fusing with his cells, but tests would have to be performed before she would know anything concrete.

"Okay, here's where I need your help." The doctor continued, removing the last cartridge and bandaging his arm. "I can test your amount of exposure to the gas, but in order to test your immunity to the T-Virus, I need you to bring me an infected specimen… a _zombie_ , if you can."

"Sure… I'll find you one." The Lieutenant replied. "I'm gonna lock the door on my way out; don't open that door no matter what except for me, and for God's sake, stay quiet."

Linda nodded, gesturing for him to be on his way, and since this little task gave him the opportunity to accomplish both goals at once, Tobias walked out of the room. Making sure that the doors and all window-blinds to the laboratory were secured, the Lieutenant started running back toward the stairwell, hurrying back down to the second floor, and then stopping in his tracks upon reaching the last place he had seen Elza.

As far as he knew, there had been no scream or any sounds of a struggle when she had vanished, most likely since it happened while dealing with that maintenance zombie, so he would have to rely on other methods to track her down. The first thing that Tobias saw was a heavy black scuff-mark, far away from where the zombie had attacked him and Linda, and judging by how large of an impression it had made, it was both too large to be Elza's, _and_ turning to leave.

The scuff stayed just as dark from start to end instead of lightening, which only happened if someone's weight had changed while lifting their foot off the floor, and this confused his for a second until the Lieutenant spotted something red on the glass windows that overlooked the first floor lobby. From the color and texture, he could tell that it was a small spray of blood, and Tobias was about to examine it closer, when he discovered a larger, thicker dot of the same substance near the scuff mark.

"Hello, there." He said to himself, looking at it. "What can you tell me?"

Being that he was a ten year veteran of the RPD, with eight of those years being a Homicide Detective, it was easy for him to piece together what happened. Elza had been approached from behind and struck in the head, most likely by a small, hard object, explaining why there was no scream or struggle, as it rendered her unconscious. She was then picked up and slung over her assailant's shoulder, meaning that while the blood on the window was from impact, the blood on the floor had simply dripped off.

The fact that the young woman was carried off instead of being devoured on the spot, suggested that her attacker was a _human_ , not a zombie or other infected monster… and most likely male to have been able to carry her off so quickly, but why had he attacked her? And where had she been taken? Since the scuff mark suggested that the attacker had been turning heel to leave, Tobias worked backwards, moving further down the corridor until discovering another small drop of blood, this time on the top step of the DNA staircase.

"Hasty crimes leave hasty mistakes." Tobias said to himself, repeating a line from the Detective Exam as he went down. "I'm getting closer… gonna find you."

Another drop was discovered nearly at the bottom, which was good since it meant that Elza hadn't been hit that hard, but it also meant that the trail would be harder to follow if she stopped bleeding before he was able to catch up to them. However, the next drop that he discovered was right in front of the locked elevator, so it was pretty obvious that not only had the young woman been taken to another floor… most likely a basement level, since he and Linda were actively on the top two levels… but also that her attacker had a key.

Why did people do this? The Lieutenant wondered as he tried to think of a way to access the elevator. He had seen examples of this during any kind of crisis situation; Desert Storm, Hurricane Opal, no matter what was happening, or how life-threatening the situation was, there were people who chose that time to act out their desires. Usually this came in the form of looting or destruction of property, but in rare cases, such as during the city-wide blackout back in '87, these desires could come in the form of kidnapping, rape, or murder.

Tobias had just become a Detective when the blackout happened, and there had been a man, a landscaper who did grounds work in the better, uptown neighborhoods, and he decided to spend the three weeks that the city had no power, kidnapping the women of those homes. Eight women, some of them barely old enough for high school, had been tortured, raped, and murdered by the time that he and Lieutenant Irons had tracked the scumbag down into his hideout in the sewers… and the two of them had spent the next day exacting horrible vengeance.

"Okay, think, think, Tobias." The Lieutenant continued to himself. "How do you get into an elevator without a key?"

This time he was going to get there before anything happened, because even though the elevator was locked down, Tobias still had the keyring from the janitor's closet… which included one for the elevator system's control room. The door to this room was just around the corner from the elevator itself, and after opening it, the Lieutenant found what he was looking for. Past the dead motors and control systems, there was a maintenance hatch that led into the elevator shaft, and after pulling it open, he found that the elevator was down two floors.

While crawling in through the hatch, and then climbing down the permanently fixed ladder, Tobias was continuing to build a potential profile to Elza's attacker. Clearly he was not a maintenance worker, janitor, or otherwise, since one of them would have anticipated using the control room entrance. No, he was dealing with someone who only understood the passive workings of such machines… but they would still have access… maybe an administrator or a professor.

"Is that who you are, a Professor?" He said to himself, continuing down. "Did you go crazy over the years, having to look at all the pretty little college students, and not being able to touch them?"

Yeah, that seemed like his guy, all right. A few years ago there had been someone going around attacking co-eds on this very campus, and the solution had actually been to take Valentine from S.T.A.R.S. and make her up like a student… and _man_ had she been cute. Tobias had wanted to use Redfield's sister, _Claudia_ , or was it _Candice_? Either way, Valentine caught the jerk, and even busted out one of his teeth during the arrest.

"Is that what you're gonna do, Professor?" Tobias said to himself, climbing down on top of the elevator car. "Are you gonna put up a fight? Are you armed? Or are you gonna collapse like a jellyfish when the cops bust in?"

That was the remaining danger. No matter how weak or cowardly a person acted in day to day life, there was always a chance that they would fight back when cornered. After all, if they were capable of kidnapping and murder, who was to say they couldn't shoot a cop? Pulling up the emergency hatch on the elevator, the Lieutenant slowly lowered himself down, and since _fire-code_ prevented an elevator from being locked from the inside, even with a key, the doors opened with the touch of a button.

"Ooh, we're getting warm now." Tobias whispered, discovering more blood leading down the only corridor. "You better hope that girl's unharmed, or I'm gonna make you pay a _hundred_ fold."

Taking out his pistol and moving quickly down the corridor, the Lieutenant was straining his ears, trying to hear anything that was going on inside the room up ahead. It was the only possible door, meaning that Elza's attacker would have had to go through there, and once up to the door, Tobias could hear some noises from the other side. There was some talking, but the door was too thick for him to make anything out, other than the fact that there were two voices, a frightened sounding female, and an… _unstable_ sounding male.

There was something else there, too… a noise that sounded kind of like a whimpering dog… or maybe scared girls? It was too hard to tell through the door, but what he could determine was that there was only a _single_ male voice, meaning that Elza's attacker was in there all by himself, with no backup. Taking another listen just to make sure, the Lieutenant decided to take the risk, so he kicked open the door.

"RPD, nobody move!" Tobias yelled, moving into the chamber with his weapon raised. "You, there, drop your weapon!"


	21. Chapter 21 Elza's Choice

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty One: Elza's Choice**

Elza was still having a hard time wrapping her mind around what was happening around her; chained up along with all of those other girls, the one called Stephanie dead while her zombie boyfriend was shoved back into the storage room by Dr. Hartwell, and now the deranged former professor resumed his little walk around the room, stopping to either hit, grope, or make insane accusations at his captives.

"Stop it!" The young woman yelled, no longer able to take the cries of agony from the stun gun being used on a girl. " _Please_ … just stop! You don't have to do this!"

"Oh, don't I?" Hartwell asked, leaving his victim and walking up to her. "Modern girls don't understand the proper way to respond to a man who is simply showing them affection… you're all so spoiled, and a bunch of entitled little sluts, but then again… if you are taken _out_ of your privileged environment… then shown how vulnerable and helpless you really are… here, let me just _show_ you."

Never before in her life had Elza experienced such pain as when the former professor stuck his stun gun into her partially exposed midriff, making her shriek while he pressed the trigger with a _tick-tick-tick_. Falling against the chains as her body twitched uncontrollably, the young woman was crying by the time he stopped. It felt like every nerve in her whole body was firing at once, but then he pressed the stun gun into her stomach again, not even giving her enough time to beg him not to, before pulling the trigger again.

"Nothing to say this time?" The former professor asked, smirking after letting go of the trigger. "No demands? No threats to have me arrested? Nope… just another _weak_ , _scared_ , _crying_ little girl, aren't you? Oh, you think staying quiet will make me not hurt you?"

Elza pulled at her restraints, trying to get away while Dr. Hartwell clamped his hand over her mouth, muffling her screams when the stun gun was shoved into her ribs. _Tick-tick-tick_ , the young woman was sobbing uncontrollably, as were the other captive girls, and it seemed like the pain would never end… until there was a loud bang as the door was kicked open, causing the former professor to stop as a familiar figure entered the room.

"RPD, nobody move!" Tobias yelled, keeping the pistol aimed on the former professor. "You, there, drop your weapon!"

For a moment Dr. Hartwell seemed to be frozen in place, but then he suddenly rushed forward, trying to get behind Elza like a shield. _Bang!_ The Lieutenant pulled the trigger, sending a bullet right through the former professor's wrist, making him drop the stun gun, and stumble backwards. Groaning in pain while holding his now bleeding wrist, Dr. Hartwell looked around the room as if looking for an escape route, but finding none… until his eyes fell on the knife sticking out of the dead Stephanie's shoulder.

 _Bang!_ With another pull of the trigger, there was a small spray of blood when the bullet slammed into the former professor's leg, ending his attempt to grab the knife, and resulting with the deranged man collapsing to the floor. As for Tobias, he was now starting to advance toward the wounded kidnapper, when he stopped… looking around the room as if just now realizing what was going on.

"What the _fuck_?" The Lieutenant asked, looking at the captive girls, Elza, Stephanie, and then back at the former professor again. "All right, _sicko_ , there's still a few bullets in this gun, so you just lay there _real_ still, and _maybe_ I won't have to use them."

"Oh, don't act so high and mighty, _officer_." Dr. Hartwell groaned, holding his leg on the floor. "Don't tell me you've… never thought about taking one of these little sluts for…

The former professor's words were stopped when Tobias roughly kicked him in the mouth, causing blood and something that might have been a tooth to go flying as Dr. Hartwell fell the rest of the way down onto his back. The Lieutenant then reached down and picked up the fallen stun gun, before pulling the knife out of Stephanie, and using it to begin freeing the captive girls.

"First off, you sick bastard." Tobias said, cutting another girl's restraints. "It's _Detective_ , not officer… second… no, I would never take a girl against her will… because I'm a _real_ man, unlike you."

Finally getting over to Elza, and cutting the cords around her wrists and neck, the Lieutenant was starting to say something else to the former professor, but was interrupted when the young woman threw her arms around him, squeezing as tightly as she could while continuing to cry. He hugged her back, repeatedly telling her that everything was going to be all right now, but that didn't keep her from being scared. In fact, the only reason that she let go of him at all was because there were still a couple girls to free… and then there was Dr. Hartwell.

"Okay everybody, listen up." The Lieutenant announced once everyone was loose. "The pervert here can no longer hurt you… but it's a little hard to arrest anyone right now, given the state of the city, so here's what we're going to do."

Holstering his pistol and then holding out the stun gun and dagger, Tobias explained that each one of the captives, including Elza, were going to get the opportunity to pay him back for his, uh… _hospitality_. It was obvious what he expected them to do, each take a turn either shocking or cutting Dr. Hartwell, but while the young woman wanted nothing to do with this… the others weren't so reluctant.

"He called me a slut." A redheaded girl said quietly, taking the stun gun. "He said I was a whore, when I've never…

She didn't finish her statement, instead pulling the trigger as she moved toward the former professor, and making him scream when she jammed it into his side. Dr. Hartwell flailed his good arm at her, forcing her to back off, but then another girl, this time a blonde, took the knife and stabbed him in the shoulder. One by one each girl took their turn, cutting and shocking him until he had urinated himself, and lay in a fetal position sobbing just like he had done to them.

"Do you feel that, pervert?" Tobias asked once they were done. "That's called _karma_ … you girls grab your things and get ready to go… Elza, you come over here."

The other captives slowly walked over to the pile of clothes and possessions, getting dressed while the young woman walked up to the Lieutenant, and then he surprised her by placing the pistol into her hands. Looking down at the bleeding and helpless man who had tortured her, Tobias explained that sometimes the only way to stop a criminal so that he would never hurt anyone else… was to kill him.

"Elza, I'm going to give you the same choice my Lieutenant gave _me_ when I was a rookie." The Lieutenant continued. "As bad as things are, we can try to bring him in by the book to face justice… or you can pop him right here."

There were pros and cons to both choices, as Tobias explained; she might feel better about letting him live, but he might escape, or due to what was happening in the city, such charges might be dropped, leaving him free to go and hurt more girls some other time. On the other hand, shooting him would guarantee that no one else would _ever_ be hurt like this again, not by him… but taking a life would be something that would stay with her for the rest of her days.

At first she wasn't going to do it, since killing someone was never something that she could have imagined herself doing, no matter what… but then she looked at Stephanie… an innocent girl, killed by that maniac… and her zombie boyfriend… and the scars and bruises on the other girls. Lastly, there was how he had treated her… there had been no mercy, and if Tobias hadn't shown up when he did, Elza would still have been getting tortured.

 _Bang!_ There was a flash of light, a tiny bit of smoke, and an instant of noise as the bullet tore through Dr. Hartwell's forehead, leaving a splatter mark on the floor as he collapsed, and then it was over. For several seconds the young woman just stood there, trying to process what she had just done, but only having a kind of numb feeling… she had really done it… she had killed a man. She wasn't sure what to do or say, only managing to move again to look up at Tobias when he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Well done." He said calmly as all of the former captives looked at them. "It might not feel like it _now_ , but you've made this city a better place… now, as head of Homicide Division, I'm ruling this man's death a suicide… and hereby Deputizing you into the Raccoon City Police Department."

Elza wasn't sure if all this was really happening… everything that had happened today since leaving her parent's house this morning felt like some kind of bizarre nightmare; the zombies, the monsters, the survivors, and now all this… Tobias had just convinced her to murder a man who should have been taken into custody, regardless of how bad things were in the city… and she wasn't sure, but it sounded like he had just made her a cop?

"All right, everyone, show's over." The Lieutenant continued, searching Dr. Hartwell until he found the elevator key. "Now, _Officer_ Walker here is going to lead you up to the third floor in an orderly manner, while I make sure there's no stragglers, and _whoa_!"

The Lieutenant jumped back, and everyone else gasped as Stephanie, now with glazed-over eyes and discolored skin, growled while pulling at her restraints, trying to bite him. In response, Tobias extended his shock baton, and the formerly captive girls gasped again when he struck her with it, causing sparks to fly. Instead of putting her out of her misery, however, the Lieutenant cut the cords holding her up, but left her wrists and neck restrained, sort of like what Dr. Hartwell had done with Stephanie's boyfriend.

"Linda said she needed an infected specimen." He explained, getting a better grip on the zombie to control it. "All right, let's get out of here."

"Uh… everyone to the elevator." Elza said a bit nervously once she had been given the key. "Apparently we're going to the third floor."

As happy as she was to be getting out of the basement, the young woman was suddenly very nervous to know that, since her sudden _draft_ into the RPD, these girls… and Tobias… were going to be counting on her… for what? Leadership? She was a _nobody_ with terrible taste and timing for going to college… what exactly did the Lieutenant expect her to do?


	22. Chapter 22 Crimson Head

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Two: Crimson Head**

Now that the sicko in the basement had been dealt with, and Elza along with the rest of the surviving captive girls were safe inside the third floor laboratory, Tobias was able to focus on the experiments that Linda was performing. Once all of the preliminary work had been done on the samples she had taken, it was time for the actual tests, and to do this, the doctor needed a sample of infected blood.

The zombie that had once been Stephanie had been secured to some heavy pipes that ran along the lab's ceiling, making it easier for the Lieutenant to hold the creature while Linda took a syringe full of what she needed, and as disturbing as this was to the former captives, all eyes were on the doctor as she moved over to a microscope. A single drop of Tobias's blood had been placed onto a slide, and with careful precision, Linda added a single drop from the syringe onto it.

Having no idea what was supposed to happen, the Lieutenant watched as the doctor moved to look through the microscope, but then she gasped when the blood on the slide suddenly expanded into a pool that was big enough to run over the edge and down onto the table. This stopped a couple seconds later, and the blood immediately started to dry out, but not before Linda was able to get a look at the slide.

"The virus!" She exclaimed, adjusting the focus. "It's just… _gone_!"

From what she was able to guess after a couple similar tests, was that as a result of his exposure and fusion to the P-Epsilon gas, his blood was somehow metabolizing the T-Virus as it came into contact, and then burning it off as excess energy, which would explain the temporary increases in physical ability that he had experienced after being bitten by the zombies. This also meant that the amount and duration of each increase would depend on how much of the virus that he had been exposed to.

"Detective, I have a question for you." Linda asked, stepping away from the microscope. "When each of those zombies bit you, what happened to them?"

"I can't really be sure." Tobias replied, looking over at their captive zombie. "I killed each one almost immediately after."

Well, there was only one thing to do about this, at least as far as the doctor was concerned, so she took a fresh sample of the Lieutenant's blood, and had him restrain their captive zombie so that she could inject the sample into its neck. Pushing the plunger down, and then the two of them backing away, the zombie showed no signs of change as it continued groaning and growling, attempting to get closer and bite them.

However, after a couple of minutes, the groaning and overall aggressive behavior started to slow, with the zombie moving less and less, until being almost perfectly still… before suddenly gasping. Now starting to twitch and convulse where it stood, everyone in the room just stood there wide-eyed while the creature's body began to change… over the course of maybe a minute and a half, the creature's skin discoloration faded, as did the glaze over its eyes, until there was no longer a zombie standing there… but Stephanie.

"W… what?" The once again human girl asked with a shaky voice, looking around. "W… where am I? What's going on?!"

Tobias couldn't believe what he was seeing… his blood had apparently completely cured the girl, and after a couple of the other former captives asked if it was really her, the general mood of the room was suddenly a happy one. This was incredible, and far beyond what the Lieutenant was expecting, meaning that if Linda could manage to create a mass-vaccine from his blood, then it was possible to save Raccoon City after all, and…

He had been just about to release Stephanie, when the girl gasped, suddenly crying out in pain and starting to shake as her eyes became bloodshot. Looking to the doctor for answers, Linda could only shrug and shake her head as the girl began to convulse, now screaming as her body began to smolder, resulting in her skin beginning to take on a reddish tint. Stephanie's voice got rapidly deeper, and as she pulled on her restraints, the Lieutenant could see that her fingers were changing in appearance as well… becoming more like sharpened claws.

"Kill it!" Linda yelled. "Detective, kill that thing before…

But it was too late… the claws on Stephanie's hands easily cut the cords restraining her, and Tobias was just grabbing his shock baton, when she swung her claws again, making him cry out when they tore across his wrist, making him drop the weapon. Now smoldering even more, and her skin having become completely red, Stephanie lunged forward, sinking her claws into the Lieutenant's skin while grabbing him by the shoulders, and shoving him back against the table while trying to bite him.

Shoving his good arm up underneath her neck to keep her teeth away, Tobias couldn't believe how strong the girl had become, and it was taking all of his strength to get his feet up underneath her abdomen so that he could push her back. His plan worked, using his feet to send her reeling backwards, painfully ripping her claws out of his shoulders as she fell back against the table behind her. Unfortunately, she recovered almost instantly, rushing back at him with claws outstretched.

 _Bang!_ There was a flash of noise and light as a bullet slammed into Stephanie's chest, and then another flash as Elza pulled the trigger of her pistol a second time, putting the next bullet right between the red-skinned girl's eyes. Falling backwards, the girl's still smoldering body landed on top of the table, and the Lieutenant was just starting to relax, when Stephanie growled as she stood back up.

 _Click._ The bullets in the young woman's pistol had finally ran out, making Elza unable to help him as Stephanie attacked a second time; her body now giving off black smoke, and her skin starting to bubble up while turning black in some places, like when a hot dog is left on the grill for too long. Before he could do anything, Stephanie grabbed him with her painful claws once again, but instead of trying to bite him, she swung him around before literally tossing him across the table.

The Lieutenant slid and bounced across the table before falling on the floor on the other side, but instead of going after him, Stephanie leapt toward the nearest formerly captive girl. With the others screaming as their friend was tackled to the floor, the quickly blackening girl sunk her teeth into the screaming girl's neck, and something strange happened: As she drank the girl's blood, the smoldering on her body reduced, and the blackness retreated, returning her to the red-skinned tint.

"Get off her!" Elza yelled, rushing toward them.

Having stopped to pick up the fallen shock baton, she swung it, and sparks flew as Stephanie was knocked away from the bleeding girl. Not giving her a chance to recover, the young woman struck her again and again, filling the room with flashes of blue light, and causing Stephanie's body to smolder again with each hit. The good news was that the electrical weapon was working, but the bad news was that the more the monster's body smoldered and blackened, the more aggressive and desperate it became.

There was also the fact that Elza's arm was clearly getting tired, and Stephanie was gaining ground as the speed of the young woman's attacks decreased. By this time, though, Tobias was able to get back to his feet, picking up a heavy microscope from the table, and pushing past Elza in order to slam it into the monster's head with a hard _crunch_. This blow knocked Stephanie off her feet, and as expected, she started to get up again, but only received another smack to the head with the microscope for her trouble.

"Elza, get everyone out of the lab!" He yelled, hitting the monster again. "Hurry!"

She ran to start ushering all of the formerly captive girls out of the laboratory, while Tobias hit the monster again, but this time the microscope broke over its head, allowing Stephanie to rush him. The monster tackled him to the floor, and now she appeared to have become even stronger, with his arm against her neck being unable to stop her head from moving down so that she could sink her teeth into his shoulder.

Groaning in pain as her claws and teeth sunk into him, and the heat coming from the monster's body feeling like it was going to burn his face, Stephanie suddenly stopped biting him. Her claws and teeth retracted from his flesh while her skin rapidly blackened; her body smoldering even more than it had been before, as if biting him had made her condition even worse. Scrambling to her feet and roaring as she ran after the others, Stephanie shrieked when she found that there was no way to get to them, now that Elza had gotten everyone out in the hallway and locked the door.

Pulling on the doorknob and then beating on the door itself, Stephanie shrieked again as her body smoldered and blackened more and more, before she literally burst into flames. The sudden flash of fire set off the lab's sprinklers almost instantly, and the Lieutenant could see the red-skinned girl falling to her knees and then collapsing completely… but by the time the flames were out and the sprinklers stopped… there was nothing left of Stephanie but a pile of black ashes.

As for Tobias, he was left lying there on the floor, and it was unlikely that anyone could come to help him, since the lab door could only be unlocked from the inside, or with the keys that he still held. And worse still, the wounds that he had gotten from Stephanie were not healing by themselves like the others had, probably since there had been no virus left… at least none that he could absorb. This left him bleeding and in potentially serious trouble, and the Lieutenant was looking around for something to help him stand, when a groan attracted his attention.

It was coming from the other girl that Stephanie had attacked, and after obviously succumbing to her wounds, her skin had become discolored, with a white glaze over her eyes. For a moment Tobias wondered why she hadn't become a red-skinned monster like Stephanie, but for now he had other things to worry about, such as the zombie crawling across the floor toward him. In his current state, there was nothing that he could do to get away, so he groaned when he felt the creature's teeth sinking into his arm… but then there was a familiar rush of energy.

Suddenly becoming full of life once again, the Lieutenant found the strength to grab the zombie and pull it closer, before doing something that he would have never imagined… opening his mouth and sinking his own teeth into its neck. The taste of its infected blood was like rust and mold, but with each bit that he forced himself to swallow down, not only did his strength increase, but the wounds on his body were closing.

From where he was lying on the floor, the tables blocked any of the others from seeing through the laboratory windows, which was good since he didn't want to try and explain this to anyone just yet, and soon the zombie had stopped moving. To ensure that another red-skinned monster would not be created, he broke the zombie's neck with a wet _snap_ , before pulling himself to his feet.

Now all he had to do was join the others, and since the testing on his blood was done as far as he was concerned, he just had to figure out a way to get them out of the building. However, all of these thoughts were stopped when he stood up and caught his own reflection in the mirror above the eye-wash station… and saw that his eyes had turned _yellow_.


	23. Chapter 23 Delta Team

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Three: Delta Team**

Although glad that Tobias was okay after being left alone to fight off that red-skinned super zombie on his own, the fact that the Lieutenant's eyes had become yellow for some reason was quite a shock to Elza and the others. Of course, thinking about all of the other strange things that had been going on with him since they met, this detail seemed kind of minor, especially once Linda resumed her work.

So for the next couple hours, there was a lot of waiting around, mostly with the young woman being responsible to keeping an eye on the other former captives. They were all inside the lab again, with the door locked and the blinds down over the windows, told to be quiet so as to not attract the attention of anything else that might have been lurking inside the building, which gave Elza plenty of time to think.

She had killed a man… yes, that lunatic had assaulted and kidnapped her, after doing the same to a dozen other girls, and even killing some of them… but he had been stopped. Tobias had kicked open the door and subdued him like on an episode of _Law & Order_, and when he had offered her the choice to do things the right way, or simply kill him… she had killed him. What bothered her the most about it was that the Lieutenant had mentioned once being offered the same choice… and then he had _deputized_ her.

Was that how things were done in Raccoon City, even _before_ this outbreak? Elza had noticed that the Lieutenant was a little quick to use force on the few human survivors that they had met… not that it wasn't warranted… but now the young woman was a cop herself… so would she be expected to start shooting _humans_ we well as the monsters? Good thing for her that the plan was to leave the city after the doctor finished running whatever tests she could.

"I'm afraid that's about it." Linda said after looking at the last sample. "We've learned a lot about your case, Detective, but I'll need a more advanced laboratory in order to discover anything further."

"All right, then we're leaving." The Lieutenant replied, rolling down his sleeve and getting off the examination table. "Elza, make sure everyone sticks together… I'm going to make sure those dogs are gone."

All of them wanted to get out of there, so there was no issue with anyone trying to run off, or anything stupid like that, so with the young woman bringing up the rear and the doctor in front, the large group made their way back to the first floor. Elza was tense at first, but as they reached the second floor, and then went down the DNA staircase, she continually relaxed, especially after seeing through the windows that it was almost dawn.

"Looks like those dogs lost interest." Tobias reported, coming back into the building. "Far as I can tell, we've got a clear run to the cable car, but let's move carefully so we don't draw any attention."

This was good advice, Elza thought as they all prepared to leave the building. After all, she had seen first-hand that Raccoon City was just as dangerous during the day as it was at night, so as a single group they all went through the door, with the young woman keeping a close watch on the trees that bordered this part of the college campus. Thankfully, nothing jumped out at them as they moved down the driveway, passing the smaller building where the key ring had been taken from, and now the cable car was in sight.

"Okay, it's clear." The Lieutenant said after going in to check for dangers. "Everyone get on in an orderly fashion, and find a seat."

Linda and the former captives sat down once onboard, filling the benches while Elza went up to the controls with Tobias. With a sharp _hiss_ the doors closed, making the young woman sigh with relief since now nothing could get to them, and after releasing the breaks, the cable car started to move. She actually started to smile when the RCCC campus started to get smaller; watching the place that had once been her goal vanishing as the cable car moved toward the edge of the city.

This was it… she could see the edge of the city approaching, and there was a sign where the _Raccoon-Stoneville Line_ changed into the _Stoneville Line_ , and beyond that was a short clearing before the tracks would enter the forest. It was such a nice view, seeing the forest ahead as the sky turned pink with sunrise, and now there was something else coming into view… just before they were about to leave the city, there was a flash of yellow light up ahead, and then a trail of black smoke as something was… flying toward them.

"Holy shit!" Tobias yelled, suddenly diving onto Elza as it got closer. "Get down!"

For a second the young woman had trouble understanding why he had just tackled her to the floor, but then something slammed into the front of the cable car, and then there was an explosion. In a flash of orange light and noise, the cable car was not only stopped in its tracks, but thrown over onto its side; glass shattering and metal scraping across the ground while the pulverized controls burst into flames. There was screaming, and everyone was thrown around inside the car as it slid to a rough stop against a building wall, and then everyone just laid there, coughing and groaning.

"Elza?" The Lieutenant groaned, sitting up. "Elza, are you all right?"

The young woman's head was spinning as she tried to sit up, but the ringing in her ears along with the pain that was now coursing through her entire body, made this quite impossible. So he struggled to pick her up, letting Elza see that his eyes were no longer yellow, and it was probably his temporary boost from the virus that made him less hurt than the others. Tobias had been unable to carry her due to his own injuries, and now that her vision was becoming a little clearer, the young woman could see the extent of what happened.

It could only have been a missile of some kind that hit the cable car, and now there was blood on the walls, and some of the formerly captive girls were no longer moving. Regardless of her own injuries, Elza knew that they needed to help those girls, and also Linda, who was thankfully still alive. She didn't like the doctor very much, but if she could make some kind of a cure from Tobias's blood, then she needed to stay alive. However, the young woman was just starting to crawl over to her, when the side door of the cable car was pulled open.

She couldn't see who it was standing there, but they had an incredibly bright flashlight of some kind that was so intense, it made her put a hand up to block it when the figure standing there moved it around the interior. With her hand up, Elza could partially see that this person was wearing some kind of black riot armor, like the kind a police _S.W.A.T._ team would use… and also that they were armed.

" _Targets are down, Command_." The figure said, his voice sounding as if through a mask. " _Moving in for collection_."

" _Understood, Delta Team_." A voice said back through his radio. " _Salvage who you can, and sanitize the others_."

With that, the figure along with several others, each waring some variation of the same kind of armor and gas masks, stormed into the cable car. Tobias and Elza were grabbed and dragged out, where they were dropped roughly onto the pavement, along with the others who were still alive, including Linda. However, there were some gunshots heard from inside the car, with these people apparently having no trouble with following their orders to shoot anyone who might turn into a zombie later.

" _Situation under control, Command_." Another of them, a woman with a Russian accent, said. " _We've got Dr. Lo… little bitch walked right into our cable car trap along with a dozen others_."

" _Excellent, Delta Team_." The Command voice crackled as the masked people forced everyone to get on their knees. " _Verify the status of any of her test subjects, and then proceed as instructed_."

The Russian woman, who appeared to be the leader, nodded to one of the others, a stocky man with some kind of brace on his leg, causing him to take out his pistol, and aim it at one of the formerly captive girls. _Bang!_ He pulled the trigger, causing a spray of blood to blast out of the back of the girl's head just before she collapsed. The other girls were naturally frightened by this, starting to gasp and scream, but stopped when the stocky man fired another shot into the air.

" _This was just a warning, Dr. Lo_." The Russian woman continued, taking out her own pistol and putting it to the doctor's head. " _Now, we can do this one of two ways: You can identify your testing subjects to us, in which case some of you might get out of this alive… or we can simply kill all of you and be done with it_."

"You don't understand!" Linda exclaimed desperately. "His blood could be a way to fix this whole mess that the Company created, but we need to…

 _Bang!_ The Russian woman pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the doctor's head, and although this action seemed pointless by Elza, it turns out that this team had gotten all the information they needed… Linda had unintentionally revealed that her test subject was male, and there was only _one_ man in the group. _Bang! Bang!_ The stocky man continued going down the line, shooting the formerly captive girls one by one, until there was only Tobias, with the young woman on the other side of him.

" _Sorry, honey_." The stocky man said, moving past Tobias and aiming at Elza. " _The target's male, so… bad day to be a woman, I…_

Suddenly the stocky man's words were interrupted when the Lieutenant lunged at him, grabbing his arm and sinking his teeth into his exposed wrist, making him cry out while Tobias pulled the pistol form his hand. Standing up while swinging the pistol, the stocky man went down as the weapon was brought across the side of his head with a hard _whump_ , and then the Lieutenant aimed at the first target he saw.

 _Bang!_ He was aiming at the Russian woman, but hit the slightly larger woman behind her, shattering the face plate of her mask, and making her fall to the pavement as the mask filled up with blood. By this time the Russian woman had been able to react, aiming her own pistol, and shooting Tobias in the arm, causing him to drop the pistol. One of the others reacted as well, a skinny man in some kind of a hood, and _his_ bullet caught the Lieutenant in the leg, sending him down.

" _All right, that's enough_." The Russian woman ordered. " _We need the target alive_."

" _Come on, Lupa, he killed Bertha_!" The one in the hood argued. " _We should make him watch what we do to his girlfriend, and then take our time with him_!"

Fortunately for them, it seemed that this _Lupa_ had more sense than the others did, suggesting that they take Elza along with them as a way to make Tobias more cooperative. _Unfortunately_ , though, he had only been able to kill one of them, even though he had given a good whack to the stocky man… who was now holding the bite on his wrist as if it was hurting him more than the hit to the head.

" _All right, let's move_." Lupa continued, motioning for Elza to help the Lieutenant stand. " _We'll hold them in the sewer facility until extraction can be arranged_."


	24. Chapter 24 Backtracking

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Four: Backtracking**

Moving through the zombie infested streets of Raccoon City was certainly a lot easier with these armed people shooting anything that even started to get close to where the group was walking. There seemed to be no limit to the amount of ammo they were carrying, so dozens of zombies were dropped where they stood, but now all the work that Tobias and Elza had done to get away from the city was being undone.

With the Lieutenant leaning heavily onto Elza, struggling to keep walking because of his bullet wounds, they were being marched back down the cable car line toward the station where they had separated from Vickers and that S.T.A.R.S. hunter. Linda had been right about how the virus stored within his body would react; partially healing the bullet holes in his leg and arm before running out of steam, but it hadn't provided a way for them to escape from the current situation.

By this time the sun was starting to rise, coating the city with orange light that somehow didn't feel appropriate with the zombies and monsters running around, but at least now everything around them could be seen more clearly. Tobias had spent most of his life in Raccoon City, and he knew every street and alley, but now with all of the barricades, fires, and bodies… it was unrecognizable.

" _Mission Log; Lupa, September 28_ _th_ _, daylight hours_." The Russian woman said into her recording unit. " _P-Epsilon subject and insurance hostage in custody, USS Delta Team proceeding down cable car line toward the old abandoned water and sewer treatment facility. Will avoid main routes as much as possible in order to preserve target's safety, and use the facility as containment until extraction arrives_."

"So what are you guys, some kind of cleanup squad?" Tobias asked as they kept moving. "Tying up loose ends so that Umbrella doesn't get in trouble when this is all…

His words were interrupted when the stocky man with the leg brace struck him in the upper back with the stock of his rifle, causing the Lieutenant to stumble away from Elza, and land face first in a puddle-filled pothole. The other members of Delta Team laughed when he fell, mocking him when he spit out the mouthful of water he had received, only to have the stocky man walk up and press his foot down onto the back of Tobias's head, putting him back underwater.

No, wait… this wasn't water… it was blood from a zombie that was lying nearby, so instead of fighting to get back up to the air, the Lieutenant quickly began to drink it down. The taste was absolutely awful, and he had to force himself to keep from vomiting, but every drop that he held down made him feel a little bit better, until there was no pain at all left where he had been shot. A few seconds later the stocky man moved his foot, allowing the coughing Tobias to surface, and causing the others to laugh even more while he grabbed Elza by the hair.

" _The rules are simple, chump_." The stocky man said, pulling her hair so that her head tilted back as far as it would go. "You keep your feet moving and your mouth shut, or else your girlfriend here is going to have a _really_ bad day, like so."

Without any warning, the stocky man jammed his knee into the young woman's stomach, knocking the wind out of her before shoving her back up against a metal bar fence, next to a sign that said _RACCOON CITY PARK_. Tobias started to get up to help her, but was stopped when the Russian woman brought her pistol down across the side of his head with a hard _clack_ , sending him back down. She then grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head up while dropping her knee into his back, and shoving the barrel of her pistol into his mouth when he cried out.

" _No, no, you just watch_." Lupa said as the stocky man punched Elza in the side of the face. " _This way you know the price of not cooperating_."

With the young woman dazed by the punch, the stocky man forced her to bend over backwards over a nearby dumpster, where he slugged her again so that she would be still long enough for him to take a multi-tool out of his back pocket. Elza tried to fight him off, but with no weapons, and after being hit yet again, there was nothing she could do to stop him from opening the pliers feature, and shoving it into her mouth.

" _I won't lie; I find this kind of thing exciting_." Lupa said to Tobias as Elza began to scream and cry. " _But you will be much easier to deal with after, yes_?"

After a few seconds of them struggling, and a lot of screams from the young woman, the stocky man moved off of her, showing the rest of the team that he had pulled out one of her back teeth with the pliers. As for Elza, she rolled off the dumpster, falling to her hands and knees; spitting out a large amount of blood onto the pavement, and then continuing to cry softly while putting a hand over her mouth.

" _That was for Bertha_." The stocky man laughed, tossing her tooth away. " _Now both of you pieces of shit get on your feet, and… and we gotta… we gotta keep… uh_."

" _Are you all right, Beltway_?" One of the others asked, the humorous mood of the team suddenly vanishing. " _Hey, man… say something_."

Dropping his rifle onto the ground, and breathing heavily, it sounded like the stocky man was trying to say something, but could only groan while scratching at his wrist… right where Tobias had bitten him. Ever since what happened with Stephanie in the college lab, the Lieutenant had wanted to know what would happen if he were to infect a regular human, but apparently the results were the same… regardless of no one seeming to notice that their teammate's gloves were being ripped up from the inside by slowly forming claws.

While everyone was distracted by the heatwaves that were now emanating from Beltway as if he were burning up, Tobias was crawling his way over to the still crying Elza, whispering to her that they needed to be ready to run. There was still blood running out of her mouth, but she nodded in understanding, and the Lieutenant couldn't help but realize what a brave girl she was turning out to be.

Suddenly Beltway screamed; the stocky man's body now clearly smoldering as he ripped off his gas mask, making all the members of Delta Team gasp when they saw that his skin had turned red. Not only that, but he now had the predominant features of a zombie, which caused him to run at his nearest team member, leaping onto them before they could react. The screams and gunfire began an instant later, allowing the Lieutenant to grab Beltway's fallen rifle while Elza climbed up on top of the dumpster.

The young woman used it to leap over the park's fence, vanishing into the bushes on the other side in the time it took for Delta Team to gun down the stocky man. As with Stephanie, his body burst into flames a moment later, and that was when Tobias opened fire. _Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_ , the armored people had only lost Beltway and one other during the attack, so the Lieutenant switched the rifle to full-auto, and started spraying in their general direction.

Lupa dove for cover behind a wrecked vehicle, but her only remaining teammate, a man wearing some kind of a hood around his mask, was not so lucky. Several bullets struck him in the chest and legs, including one that hit the center of the mask, dropping him instantly. The good news was that the Russian woman exposed herself a second later so that she could start shooting at him with her pistol, but the bad news was that Tobias was out of bullets.

" _I'll drag you in if I have to_!" Lupa yelled angrily. " _There's nowhere you can run_!"

Dropping the empty rifle as bits of pavement was kicked up around him from bullet ricochets, he scrambled up onto the dumpster, diving over the fence just as a bullet struck one of the bars next to him. Tumbling down to the soft dirt below, he was relieved to see that Elza was still there waiting for him, but his plan had been to kill _all_ members of Delta Team, meaning that they needed to keep moving.

From where they were, emerging into the main courtyard of Raccoon City Park after only a few meters, there were several ways they could go. The main gate was off to the left, but it would take them back toward the clock tower and hospital, essentially all the way back where they had started. Another choice was to head down the far path beyond the fountains, and try to hide in the graveyard… although somehow this didn't seem like a very smart plan with a city full of zombies.

"Shit!" He whispered harshly upon hearing rustling in the bushes behind them. "Down here… hide!"

Pulling her along, the Lieutenant climbed down into the system of fountains, resisting the urge to gasp at how cold the water was. Now moving under to where a footbridge passed over the fountains, concealing them as Lupa came charging into the courtyard. The Russian woman was breathing heavily through her mask, keeping the pistol up as she looked in every direction for them, before moving toward the footbridge.

" _Okay look, I know you're here_." Lupa said, now standing right over where they were hiding. " _Let's be civil about this, huh? Look, I'm putting the gun away… now I need to bring you in alive, or they won't send an extraction helicopter, so how about you come out, and I promise not to hurt your little girlfriend_."

Not being stupid enough to trust her, and holding Elza tightly so that her shivering wouldn't disturb the water, so now all they had to do was wait for the only remaining member of Delta Team to move on. However, as the seconds and minutes passed, further illuminating the park with the light of the rising sun, Lupa didn't go anywhere. She just stood on top of the footbridge, leaning on the guardrail as if knowing that they were still there.

" _I tried to be civil, but there is no more time for that_." The Russian woman continued, taking something out of her pocket. " _So I'll leave you with a helpful hint… when you are trying to hide like the coward you are, always make sure that the one you are dragging along does not leave a trail_."

For a moment this confused Tobias, until he saw that Elza's mouth was still bleeding, leaving a trail from the bushes, across the courtyard to where they had gotten into the water. Suddenly there was a familiar sound of something crackling, making the Lieutenant's mouth run dry even before Lupa dropped his own shock baton into the water. There was a _splash_ , and then it felt like his whole body was seizing up as a wave of indescribable pain wracked every single nerve in his body.

This lasted for a while, but then the electricity stopped, giving way to unconsciousness as he and Elza went limp, floating out from under the footbridge in the water before darkness took him completely.


	25. Chapter 25 Extraction Point

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Five: Extraction Point**

The last thing that Elza remembered was being in that cold water underneath that bridge in the park, before… before something _really_ painful had happened, and everything went dark. It didn't seem like that much time had passed, maybe a few seconds, but when the young woman was finally able to open her eyes, her slowly focusing new surroundings told her that a lot more time had passed than she thought.

She was handcuffed behind her back to the sturdy guardrails around what looked like some kind of large hatch in the floor, as was Tobias, who was just starting to regain consciousness on the other side. Aside from that, this place looked like a darkened, elaborate control room, like the kind that would be seen in an airport, but right along with the darkened lights, the equipment and machinery looked like it hadn't been used in a _long_ time.

" _Confirmed, agent Lupa_." A voice crackled through the radio, startling her. " _There are still a few days before the Raccoon City experiment is complete, but in light of your achievement, I believe that an early extraction can be arranged_."

The Russian woman was standing in front of the radio, listening as the voice on the other end told her to bring her two targets to the landing zone behind the warehouse… wherever that was. Apparently an extraction helicopter would be waiting for them there, meaning that Lupa would have to un-cuff them in order to be moved. However, apparently she had learned from trying to capture them before, and not only had a second pair of cuffs holding both of them to the guardrail so that they didn't have to be freed to be moved, but she also held Tobias's shock baton at them.

" _All right, you two, let's move_." She continued, kicking the release button to open the hatch. " _The landing zone isn't far, but we've got to hurry_."

Swinging open with a _clang_ after hitting the wall, the hatch revealed a ladder that went down to the lower levels of wherever it was they were, and there was also the matter of getting down the ladder with their hands cuffed like that. Apparently, for Lupa it was no problem at all, since she kneed Tobias in the stomach before shoving him down the hatch, and grabbed Elza by the hair to toss her down as well a couple seconds later.

" _Did either of you die_?" The Russian woman called down after Elza landed on Tobias. " _I must re-lockdown the facility, will join you shortly_."

Thankfully, the hatch had only gone down a single floor, although that didn't stop the Lieutenant from landing hard on the concrete below. Once the young woman rolled off of him, and managed to get up to a kneeling position, she saw that the lower level of this place looked like some kind of dumping ground. There were bodies lying scattered all over the floor, obviously zombies from their discolored skin, but why would they have been…

Suddenly Elza's thoughts were interrupted when Tobias moved, first getting up to a kneeling position like she was, but then lunging forward, diving into one of the infected zombies, and sinking his teeth into the side of its neck. From what had happened at the college, the young woman understood why the Lieutenant was doing that, but this didn't mean in _any_ way that it didn't completely gross her out.

Biting into the infected flesh, and swallowing down the blood of this somehow inactive zombie, Tobias had to stop suddenly when they heard the sound of Lupa's footsteps coming down the ladder. Quickly rubbing his face against the dead zombie's pant leg to clean the blood off his mouth, the Lieutenant managed to return to his original position near Elza by the time that the Russian woman was able to look around the room.

" _What a disgusting place, these old facilities_." She commented, pulling Elza to her feet, and then Tobias. " _They test these people like rats, then toss them down here like garbage to be forgotten_."

"Then why do you work for them?" Tobias asked when she urged them forward. "Look at this place, Lupa, look at this _town._ Raccoon City was once the home for a hundred thousand people, and now Umbrella has reduced it to nothing more than a _killing field_. There were _families_ here, _children_ , and now instead of growing up, they get to…

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and sparks flew when Lupa struck Elza in the back with the shock baton, making the young woman shriek as she collapsed to the floor. The crackling blue energy traveled up and down her body, making her convulse uncontrollably until it stopped a few seconds later, and the Russian woman mercilessly pulled her up to her feet by the handcuffs.

" _I warned you this is the price for not cooperating_." Lupa continued, now restraining the young woman by her hair. " _I will hurt her more each time you speak or stop moving, now go, through the far door_."

Stepping over the bodies as they went, the three of them reached the far door without incident, and when it was opened, Elza got yet another kind of view of this place. The first room looked like an airport control tower, the second was like a dumping basement, and now as they walked through the open air once again, this place looked like a junkyard. There were stacked cars making walls along the path, and there were more bodies lying around, but this time they were not run of the mill.

" _Humph, looks like the Army got further than expected_." Lupa remarked, looking down at the uniformed men on the ground. " _Good thing we were there to make sure their other units failed as well_."

Looking at how their bodies had been discarded, and left lying in unnatural positions like all the others she had seen in the past couple days, Elza almost wished that the afternoon sun wasn't shining down so brightly, so that she couldn't see everything as well. How could anyone do this? She wondered as they continued through the junkyard. Even someone who was completely driven by greed, or whatever was the start of all this… how could they look at Raccoon City, and not see how _horrible_ it all was?

" _Don't worry, is just through here_." The Russian woman said, opening the warehouse door. " _Soon you will be at comfortable Umbrella facility… Rockfort Island, most likely… then I can get paid, and we never have to see each other again. See, we all win_."

There were more bodies in this place, which was apparently the warehouse that had been mentioned earlier, judging by all of the stored equipment that lined the shelves as tall as in _Home Depot_. More uniformed soldiers, as well as standard zombies that she had seen, and even some of the bigger monsters, like that tongue creature that had chased them around the hospital, were there. The good news was that all of them were dead, as if a really intense battle happened in this place… but why? Why make a stand _there_ , of all places?

This answer was revealed after rounding the next corner, and seeing what looked like a massive kind of canon, but the likes of which Elza had never seen, positioned in the corner of the room, and hooked to different terminals via wires, as if it were going to be set up there for operation. This didn't make much sense, due to the fact that the canon was aimed at nothing but rows and rows of storage shelves, but apparently Lupa didn't plan on giving her any time to examine it.

" _Do you hear that_?" The Russian woman asked as the sound of approaching rotors was heard. " _Just one last door to go, and then you'll be on your way to your new home_."

The final door she had mentioned was at the end of the last aisle between the storage shelves, and there was a green indicator light above it, meaning most likely that it was unlocked. However, just as they were stepping up to it, there was a sharp beep, followed by a click after the indicator light turned red. An instant later, there was another locking sound from behind, most likely from the door they had used to come in, but why would the doors lock like that?

" _Command, what is going on_?" Lupa asked into her radio. " _I can hear the extraction chopper, but the doors have locked_."

" _Unfortunately, we require validity of Dr. Lo's experiments on your target_." The voice crackled through the speaker. " _Good luck, agent Lupa_."

This message confused Elza as the helicopter rotors were now heard right above the warehouse. What could they possibly mean by _validation of experiments_? _Crash!_ An answer to this question appeared a few moments later, in the form of something busting right through the ceiling; raining metal and concrete debris down onto the shelves and floor, before the huge object destroyed all of the shelves that were right underneath on its way down.

Diving for cover, all three of them hit the floor just before the object did, and when the dust cleared, standing there in the beam of sunlight that could now enter the warehouse, was a huge figure. At first Elza thought it was that S.T.A.R.S. hunter that had been after Vickers, but it looked different… slightly better constructed, with brown skin, and a long green overcoat. There was no expression at all on this thing's surprisingly human looking face, but the young woman had been in Raccoon City long enough to know that this thing was _anything_ but human.

" _You_." Tobias said, almost in a whisper as his eyes widened.

" _Command, this is ridiculous_!" Lupa yelled into her radio as the figure started to move. " _We need to extract the target, and we can't do that if your monster_ …

Suddenly the green-coat wearing monster turned toward the Russian woman, giving her just enough time to duck out of the way when it reached for her. None of them had any bullets left, nor any firearms with which to use them, so the only thing Lupa could do was swing the shock baton. Unfortunately, the monster grabbed her arm, squeezing it hard enough to make her cry out and drop the weapon as she was lifted off her feet.

" _Negative, agent Lupa_." The voice crackled while she struggled to get away. " _Combat verification on target's potential must be obtained, and this T-002 has been programmed to do just that… by trying its best to kill all of you_."

The Russian woman was unable to break free of the monster's grip, so she was reaching for a knife in her boot, when the monster tossed her up into the air. Now grabbing her by the ankles instead, the green-coat wearing abomination swung her around so that Lupa's face struck one of the nearby storage racks with a ' _wham!'_ that shattered her facemask, along with a wet _'snap!'_ that could have only been her neck breaking.

Discarding the Russian woman's body by tossing her aside, Elza could only watch as the monster now slowly walked toward her and Tobias.


	26. Chapter 26 T-002

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Six: T-002**

From the moment that the gigantic green coat wearing figure crashed down into the warehouse, Tobias found himself reliving a painful memory from back during the mission into the Arklay Mountains. It was him… that same exact figure who had nearly killed a member of his task force, and caused his family cabin to be burned to the ground. Only the combined efforts of the Lieutenant and one of his Officers had succeeded in driving the giant over a cliff, and he had hoped that the fall would be the end of the bastard once and for all.

However, the universe seemed content to spit in his face, with the giant clearly having survived the fall… but then again, Tobias hadn't been supercharged by absorbing the T-Virus back then, either. So, gritting his teeth, and pulling at the handcuffs, there was a metallic breaking sound as the bonds on his wrists shattered, and then the Lieutenant rushed toward his enemy.

Not wanting to suffer the same fate as Lupa, Tobias ran right up to the giant, ducking underneath one of the big arms as it tried to grab him, and then coming up with a punch of his own. _Whack!_ His fist collided with the giant's chin, making its head tilt while stumbling backwards. Catching one of its shoulders against a shelf, the giant's body turned sideways as it fell on its face, and not wanting to give this thing even a moment to recover, the Lieutenant grabbed onto the large shelf.

With considerable effort, and a lot of assistance from the virus that was burning up in his mutated blood, he managed to pull the shelf over, causing it and all of the heavy equipment on top, to come crashing down onto the giant's back. However, this was the end of Tobias's advantage; suddenly feeling weak as the virus was used up, but that didn't mean he was helpless. Knowing full well that this green-coat wearing monster was capable of, he knew that the next thing he had to do was free Elza so that she could help him.

"Hold your arms out." He ordered, picking up the Russian woman's pistol. "Now look away."

With no more temporary strength, the only thing the Lieutenant could do was shoot the chain between her cuffs. The good news was that Elza was free now, but there was a rumbling sound from behind him, which could only be the giant starting to free itself. Okay, weapons… he needed weapons… Lupa had been good enough to be carrying his shock baton as well as extra ammo for the pistol when she died, so Tobias grabbed them, while also looking for any other infected creatures that he could drain for power.

"What do we do?" Elza asked as the giant pushed away a crate. "How do we stop that thing?"

"Damn it, these creatures are all old and dried out." He grumbled, looking around. "Okay… I'll try and keep it busy, you… you try to get _that_ working."

The young woman turned around, gasping when she saw that he was pointing to the massive weapon-looking _thing_ in the corner of the warehouse, and hopefully she would be able to do something with it, since the giant was almost free. _Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Tobias fired several shots into the arm that it was leaning on, in an attempt to keep it from freeing itself, but this plan didn't work. _Bang! Bang!_ No matter where he shot the thing, the bullets didn't seem to be doing anything more than making it twitch a little, which was exactly what had happened at his cabin all those months ago.

"Fine, bullets don't work, I remember." He said, holstering the pistol and extending his shock baton. "But I remember you not liking _this_ very much, either."

Approaching the giant again, this time much more cautiously as it shrugged off the last crate while standing up, Tobias didn't wait for it to be ready, before bringing the baton across its side. Sparks flew, and the giant twitched heavily, nearly bending over in reaction to the electrical energy coursing up and down its body. Attempting to grab him, the Lieutenant stepped back to avoid it, before smacking its large hand away with the baton, only to find himself being backhanded with its other arm.

The fist only grazed him, but it was enough to knock Tobias down, and the giant was quick to continue the attack. Stomping forward, and then bending down to grab him, the Lieutenant avoided this by rolling to the side, before escaping the next reach by crawling through the lowest shelf on the next unit. Striking the giant's seeking fingers with the baton while crawling through to the other side, Tobias got to his feet, before taking out the pistol and firing a couple more shots into the side of the giant's head while it was turning toward him.

No effect, not even a moment of hesitation as the giant reached across the shelf, this time managing to grab the Lieutenant by the shirt, but this time instead of fighting back, Tobias actually leapt forward. The force of the giant's arms, as well as his own energy, was enough to put the shelf unit off balance when his body impacted into it, and now putting his feet back against the shelf behind him, he pushed as hard as he could… and there was nothing that his enemy could do to stop the shelf from falling toward it.

Again, all of the crates and the shelf unit itself, pinned the giant down on its back, and now that the Lieutenant was on top of them, it was easy to keep the giant from freeing itself by hitting it again and again with the shock baton. Elza, meanwhile, looked like she had come up with something, since the young woman was running down to the far end of the warehouse, but he wasn't able to see what she was up to, since the giant required his full attention.

"Elza, I hope you've got something!" He called, hitting the giant again. "My arm's starting to get tired, here!"

"Hold on, I think I can do this!" She yelled back, vanishing behind more shelves. "Just try to lure it over to the far left corner if you can, and wait for my signal!"

Unfortunately, Tobias's arm was about to give up for the day, and worse yet, the giant was showing no signs of slowing down at all, flipping both him and the shelves away the moment he could no longer swing the baton, and causing the weapon to fly from his hand. Losing his balance and falling to the floor as the shelves were discarded, the green-coat wearing monster got up first this time, and as desperately as he was searching, there didn't seem to be any infected creatures anywhere in…

That was when he got an idea… an awful, stupid idea that would probably get him killed, but it was all the Lieutenant had at the time. Clearly the giant had him outclassed, since Tobias's strength came from absorbing a virus, according to Dr. Lo… but where, he wondered, oh _where_ did the _giant's_ strength come from? There was only one way to find out, so getting up to a crouched position, he waited until the giant raised up its arms to crush him, before making his move.

Avoiding the incoming fists by rushing forward, Tobias circled around the giant, before leaping onto its back, trying his best to put the monster into a full-nelson to restrain it, and then sinking his teeth into the side of its neck. The skin was tough, much stronger than the zombies, but he managed to break through, and there was fluid underneath, like the tiny bits that leaked out each time he shot the giant.

Whether or not the foul-tasting substance was blood or not, he probably didn't want to know, but what he _did_ know, was that his suspicions had been correct… this giant was powered, at least partially by some kind of virus, since with each sickening gulp, the Lieutenant felt the incredible, yet temporary strength returning. The giant had almost managed to throw him off right away, but somehow Tobias managed to hold on, drinking down more and more of the fluid, and getting stronger to the point where he could see a yellow glow from his eyes reflecting off of the giant's shoulder.

Of course, as luck would have it, that was when the green-coat wearing monster was able to grab a hold of him, and now, its strength didn't seem to be diminished at all when it effortlessly tossed him over its head. Hitting the floor _hard_ , and sliding to a stop, the Lieutenant scrambled to his feet just in time to see the giant's massive fist coming toward his face at high-speed… and the only thing he could think of to do was put up his own hand to try and stop it.

But it worked… catching the fist in his hand, Tobias was forced back up against the wall, but he _was_ able to stop the fist with his viral power. For a moment they remained in place, the Lieutenant's arm shaking from the effort of stopping the force of the still pushing giant, but he was unable to push it back no matter how hard he tried… and the temporary power was already starting to reduce. So instead of pushing, he slammed his other arm into the giant's elbow, causing its own fist to come back and strike its face, putting the green-coat wearing monster off balance.

Screaming as he ran toward his enemy, Tobias rammed his shoulder into the giant's stomach, grabbing one of its legs with both of his arms, which forced it to stumble back, and back, and back while the Lieutenant just kept pushing. Eventually they impacted the far wall, with small cracks forming in the concrete when the giant fell against it into a seated position on the floor, and Tobias just kept coming.

 _Whack! Whack! Whack!_ He dove onto the giant, and just kept slugging it in the face and torso with his fist, and with all of his incredible virus-driven power, he was starting to put dents in the monster's body as well. With each hit, the giant took less damage as the power continued to drain from his body, but now the monster was not moving around quite as fast. In fact, it seemed to be having trouble getting up at all, once Tobias was forced to back off once his power was gone completely, but he had been so caught up in the moment that he had almost missed some kind of announcement that was broadcasting.

" _Rail Cannon primed and ready_." The deep pre-recorded voice announced. " _Firing in ten… nine… eight… seven…_

"Tobias, look out!" Elza screamed, waving her arms from near the weapon. "Tobias, it's going to fire!"


	27. Chapter 27 Extraction

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Seven: Extraction**

While Tobias went after the giant, a seemingly suicidal course, even though this thing wasn't nearly as frightening as that S.T.A.R.S. hunter they had seen, Elza immediately set to work trying to figure out the huge weapon in the corner of the warehouse. It had a keyboard, and several control panels attached to it, but thankfully there was some kind of self-diagnostic program that activated once the young woman had discovered the main power switch.

" _Checking system_." A deep voice announced, scaring her enough to make her jump. " _Checking battery… warning… there is not enough power to complete the sequence_."

Elza wasn't sure what that meant, and it wasn't like she had the ability to just _produce_ more power out of thin air… and by the sound of all the crashing and gunshots behind her, Tobias wasn't exactly having a good time while she tried to figure it out. However, it seemed that whoever had designed this weapon, has also made it really user-friendly, since there were now three large structures of some kind around the warehouse coming to life with an electronic _beep_.

"Elza, I hope you've got something!" The Lieutenant called, hitting the giant again. "My arm's starting to get tired, here!"

"Hold on, I think I can do this!" She yelled back, vanishing behind more shelves. "Just try to lure it over to the far left corner if you can, and wait for my signal!"

Honestly, she wasn't sure if her newly formed plan was going to work, but from what she could tell, each of the three structures was some kind of power generator, or battery, so if Elza could get them connected _before_ the giant beat Tobias to death, maybe there was a chance for them to survive this after all. Running over to the nearest structure, or terminal, or whatever it was, the young woman looked for some kind of switch or button, but there was none to be found.

The way things sounded, and all of the crashing going on, it didn't look like the Lieutenant had much time, so out of desperation, she just started pushing on the front part. It must have been on some kind of track, or ball-bearings or something, because the whole thing moved real easy, almost inserting itself into the port, and then causing an electrical hum as the weapon seemed to power up a bit.

Well, that was easy, she thought… but there were still two more to connect, and now that Elza had a chance to look at how Tobias was doing… he was… on the thing's back? Whatever, there was no time for the young woman to think about his strange fighting strategies, instead keeping her mind on the task at hand. The weapon powered up even more when the second battery terminal… thing was connected, causing a slight rumbling through the floor, and this shaking only increased when the last one was pushed into place.

" _Battery connected_." The voice announced as it had with the others. " _System online… initiating quick-charge mode_."

Running back over to the controls, she saw that where the monitor had shown red, was now blue, and from the noise it was obvious that the weapon was getting ready to go off, even before the announcement came that it was going to. Well, that was it, she had gotten the weapon operational, and Tobias had even managed to get the giant over into the corner like she wanted… but he was also standing right in the way.

"Tobias, look out!" Elza screamed, waving her arms as the countdown began. "Tobias, it's going to fire!"

Managing to get his attention at the last minute, the Lieutenant ran off to the side, diving out of the way just before the cannon erupted with a flash of light and noise. Tearing apart everything in its path, the charge of what looked like energy destroyed most of the shelves, leaving only the larger machine of the warehouse intact as it flew on a direct course for the giant that was just getting the rest of the way to its feet.

Slamming right into its chest, the giant's long coat was vaporized as it was lifted off its feet, and both arms were gone when it crashed into the wall, returning to the sitting position where Tobias had thrown it, and this time not getting back up. A massive hole had been ripped through its chest, as well as in the wall behind it, but the only thing Elza was concerned with was that the giant was dead.

" _System overheating_." The voice announced, startling her again. " _Entering cooldown mode._ "

The three battery terminals disconnected on their own while the weapon made a _hiss_ as high-temperature steam was released from the main unit, leaving no danger of it firing again while the young woman went to check on Tobias. He was already getting up by the time she got there, meaning that the Lieutenant wasn't dead, and Elza was just about to hug him, when the nearby door was suddenly kicked open.

There was no time to react as more than a dozen armored people who looked a lot like Lupa's team stormed into the room, surrounding they two of them, and keeping their high-powered assault rifled aimed on target. One of them checked on the dead Russian woman before shaking his head to the others, and then another examined what was left of the giant, before scoffing in what sounded like disbelief.

" _Okay, you two, on your knees_!" The nearest one ordered through his gas mask. " _Hands on top of your head, interlock your fingers, and cross your feet at the ankles_!"

Doing as they said, Elza and Tobias got down on their knees while the rest of the team secured the warehouse, and again they were handcuffed, this time behind their backs. The pistol and shock baton were quickly recovered, and with no energy left from the virus, it was unlikely that the Lieutenant was going to be able to free them again. Once all of this was finished, one of them got on the radio, announcing that the situation was _all clear_ … causing someone else to enter the room a few seconds later.

"So _this_ is the infamous P-Epsilon experiment?" The older man with graying hair asked as he looked them over. "Identify yourselves, please."

"Lieutenant Tobias Liquid and Officer Elza Walker." The Lieutenant immediately replied. "Raccoon City Police Department."

The older man chuckled a bit at this reply, before snapping his fingers, causing one of the armed men to hit him in the side of the head with the stock of their rifle. Elza started to yell something of her own, but the words were lost when another of the team kicked her in the upper back, making her fall on her face. The others quickly pulled them back up to their knees, now holding each by their hair, and keeping the barrels of the rifles stuck into the back of their necks.

"You aren't much without the virus, are you?" The older man commented, shaking his head. "From now on your designation is _P-001_ ; as you are not a human, you have no _human_ rights to speak of, and anything less than your complete and _total_ submission, will result in this _lovely_ young woman being dissected while still alive."

Tobias started to ask who this older man was, but stopped when one of the armed team suddenly slammed the stock of their rifle into Elza's stomach, making her cry out as she fell over sideways. The older man responded to this by saying that research subjects were never to speak unless it was part of the tests, and that next time it would be a bullet hitting Elza. The Lieutenant stopped talking, drawing a few chuckles from the armed team, and then the older man snapped his fingers again, causing the two prisoners to be pulled to their feet.

"Come along." The older man continued. "We have a long flight, and it's not a good idea to remain in this city for long."

Elza was grabbed by the hair and pulled along roughly by one of them, unable to see Tobias since she was in front, and quickly ushered through the door on the far side of the warehouse, opposite of the way they came in. Beyond the door was a small clearing that was surrounded by stacked junk-cars in an almost perfect circle, but providing enough space for the two helicopters that were idling in the center.

"All right, split them up." One of the masked people ordered. "P-001 in the first chopper, and the other one in the second."

The last thing the young woman wanted was to be separated from the only person in this city who she knew she could trust, and even though she knew they would likely kill her, she started resisting against them pulling her over toward the other helicopter. Her efforts were stopped by two of the men grabbing her and simply lifting the young woman off her feet. She kicked and struggled, but was unable to stop them from sitting her on the edge of the chopper, and locking her handcuffs to one of the bars.

"Don't worry, you little brat." One of them said after locking her in place. "Your boyfriend's gonna be a lot better off than you are."

Managing to look over at the first helicopter, Elza gasped when she saw one of them shoot Tobias in the back of the neck with what looked like some kind of tranquilizer dart, and whatever was in the thing, its effects were immediate. The Lieutenant collapsed into the dirt next to the helicopter, and the armed men laughed for a few seconds before picking him up. Loading him in, some of them got in the helicopter as well, shutting the door just as it started to take off, and Elza's started up into the air a moment later.

However, instead of following the Lieutenant, the chopper she was on turned away, flying in the complete opposite direction. Looking out the small window, the young woman watched Tobias get further away until vanishing from sight, and now she was more terrified than she had been at any point within Raccoon City.

"W… where are we going?" She worked up the nerve to ask.

" _To your new home_." One of them replied through their mask. " _Don't worry, you'll hate it there_."

Suddenly the one next to her swung the stock of his rifle, colliding with the side of her head with a hard _whump!_ Falling against her handcuffs, the young woman collapsed, falling into darkness as the helicopter flew off into the distance.


	28. Chapter 28 Bacillus Terminate

**Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis**

 **Chapter Twenty Eight: Bacillus Terminate**

Feeling as if only moments had passed since walking toward the helicopter, Tobias was still a little groggy when he opened his eyes. Blinking rapidly to clear the haze from his vision, the first thing that came into focus was the face of a young woman, but after a moment he realized that it was not Elza. She was a brunette, and older than Elza, but only by about five or six years at the most.

"Hey, you're awake." She said softly, rubbing a damp cloth on his forehead. "Try to relax, you'll feel better soon."

"What? Where… where am I?" The Lieutenant replied, turning his head to look around. "Elza? Where's Elza?"

As the room came into focus, it became clear that he was in some kind of hospital or maybe a laboratory, with its sterile-white colors, and matching fluorescent lighting. Monitoring and surveillance equipment was placed around the room as well, including on the platform, a kind of hospital bed that was upright to the point where Tobias was standing almost straight up, that he was lying on. Actually, it wasn't really like lying on it, and more like shackled to the frame so that he couldn't move his arms or legs.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know any Elza." The brunette continued, re-wetting the cloth. "My designation is _C-008_ , but if it's all right, I'd like to be called _Gillette_ when the doctors aren't around. You know, like that commercial… _the best a man can get_ … I know it's silly, but I dream of having a family someday. Oh, and that's _R-002_ over there, but he likes to be called _Reynaldo_ … do you have a name you'd like to use when it's just us?"

Turning his head the other way to see who she was pointing at, Tobias saw that on the far side of the room was a metal cage, where a disheartened-looking young man waved to him upon being mentioned. Now remembering that older man giving him the designation of _P-001_ before everything went dark, the Lieutenant realized that these two must've been captured just like he had been. Of course, having a research subject designation meant that something was wrong with each of them, and that didn't mean it was always good.

"Tobias." He answered, turning back to look at her. "My name is Tobias Liquid… I'm a Homicide Detective from Raccoon City."

"Oh my, that's really interesting, _Tobias_." Gillette replied with a smile. "Sometimes I like to imagine things, too, like living in a _real_ house like the ones on TV, and having a husband, and a big family where _everyone_ loves me. My sisters in the _A_ and _B_ series wanted that, too, but the doctors said they were _flawed_ , but… I'm hoping that if I'm _real_ good, and do what the doctors tell me, they might not have to prototype that _D_ series they were talking about. Then I'll get to go out and find a _real_ family."

"It's true, Tobias." Reynaldo added, leaning on the bars of his cage. "Every human who gets enough of Gillette's spores, starts to love her before too long, and when she finds a family, I get to go with her, and be her big brother. Hey, maybe you can come too, and you're older, so… maybe you can be her _uncle_ or something."

"All right, you _freaks_ , quiet down in here." A stern looking man in a hazard suit ordered when the doors slid open with a _hiss_. "Time for the daily status update."

This man was flanked by four much bigger men who were all wearing suits as well, with pouches across their front, and a rifle slung under their arms. Taking a clipboard off one of the nearby tables, the stern man scanned his eyes over the sheets, and smugly commented that subject R-002 was to remain in confinement, while P-001 was restrained for transport. Then a smile crossed his lips as he looked at Gillette, and while almost laughing, he announced that it was time for C-008 to take her medicine.

"What?" The brunette asked timidly as two of the men grabbed her arms. "No! The Director said I didn't have to take it if I was good! Please, no!"

Gillette shrieked, trying to stop herself as the two men pulled her over to one of the examination tables, with the brunette starting to become hysterical when the third man took out a _large_ syringe from one of his pouches. The tube contained a strange kind of black substance, and the brunette started crying when she saw it, kicking and fighting while they lifted up the back of her shirt, where several large injection marks were visible on the small of her back.

"Stop!" A familiar voice ordered. "I'm the Director, and I order you to let her go at once!"

Having to blink again to make sure he wasn't seeing things, where Reynaldo had been standing inside the cage just a moment ago, the older man who had captured Tobias was now standing in his place. But how in the hell had he gotten in there? And where was Reynaldo? The answer to this question came when the stern man pressed a button on his watch, making the director scream when the cage was electrified. Suddenly the Director's body changed, becoming taller, more muscular, and scaly like a lizard. This creature howled in agony while the electrical energy flowed up and down its body, and then the stern man let go of the button, the creature collapsed.

"What the fuck?" Tobias asked, wide-eyed. "What the hell kind of place is this?"

"That was cute, R-002." The stern man scoffed, turning back to the brunette. "Just for that, we won't go so easy on her. Proceed."

"No! No, don't please, don't!" Gillette begged as they readied the syringe. "I don't like the medicine! Please, I'll be good, I promise! Please!"

Her words became a horrific shriek as the needle was jammed into her back as hard as they could, and she sounded like she was being burned alive when the plunger was being pressed down. However, once the syringe was empty, and they pulled out the needle without bandaging it, the brunette quieted down. Gillette tried to stand up, but her movements were becoming sluggish, with her eyes kind of floating around like she couldn't focus on anything.

"I… uh… can't." She kind of slurred while starting to drool. "Can't… oh… feel… sick… help."

She looked like she had been heavily drugged, now starting to wobble like she was losing her balance, and reaching out toward the men with a shaky hand for help. Unfortunately for Gillette, upon getting a nod from the stern man, one of the others unslung his rifle, and struck her with the stock right between her eyes. Letting out a kind of squeak as she fell backwards, there was a clang as her head struck the table on the way down to the floor, where she kind of moaned while rolling her head back and forth.

"Oh, you're real tough, aren't you?" Tobias found himself saying. "Beating on a drugged girl... how would you like it if that was how I treated your _mother_ … _again_?"

"Maybe you want some of her medicine, too, huh, smart guy?" The suit-wearing man asked, starting to take out another syringe as he approached.

"Keep that away from him, you idiot!" The stern man warned, almost panicked. "If P-001 gets infected with _anything_ , he's more dangerous than a T-002. Now stop fucking around, and move him to the Director's office."

Now the armed men moved over to the Lieutenant, unlocking the brakes on his table's wheels, and quickly pushing him toward the door. Outside of where Gillette and Reynaldo were kept was just as sterile and white, everything from the corridors, to the elevator, and the large office where the older man he had met in Raccoon City was seated behind a desk. Locking the brakes again, the armed men left, leaving them alone.

"Ah, good morning, P-001." He said, getting up and walking closer. "You may address me as _Director_ , now that you are a permanent member of our _happy_ facility. Oh, and don't worry about your friend, _Elza_ , or should I say, _Prisoner #833225_? She's _loving_ her new home, and will stay alive as long as you play nice here. Oh, but first I wanted you to see something."

Picking up a remote control from his desk, the Director pushed the button, turning on one of the TV screens on the wall, where a news broadcast was starting to play. The older man mentioned that it was from yesterday, but that he had recorded the broadcast just for Tobias, and this made sense when the headline behind the attractive anchorwoman read: _RACCOON CITY DESTROYED_.

" _This morning at five AM, residents of the Arklay County, as well as all across the State, witnessed a bright flash in the sky_." She said solemnly. " _That flash, according to sources in Washington, was the final solution to the extreme small-pox outbreak in Raccoon City. The President, acting on advice from Congress, and the Joint Chiefs, determined that Bacillus Terminate, the emergency containment plan to use nuclear weapons to stop the spread of disease, was merited in this extreme situation. As of five o'clock this morning, Raccoon City has been literally wiped off the map… latest projections estimate the death toll surpassing the one hundred thousand mark… our hearts go out to those poor civilians… of Raccoon City_."

No, this couldn't be true, Tobias thought as the Director turned off the monitor. Raccoon City, _his city_ , couldn't be gone, it just couldn't. This had been his last chance… he might have failed in the Arklay Mountains, but this time was supposed to be different… he was going to get to the RPD, gather what was left of the police, and save the city, but… but now as he felt a tear running down his cheek, the Lieutenant was starting to realize that he had failed the city he loved, a second time.

"Guards, please escort P-001 back to the tank." The Director said into his intercom. "Now, I know you've got a lot to process here, so we won't start the experiments until tomorrow… after all, you're going to be with us for a long, _long_ time."

Unable to move, or to even think of anything to say, Tobias simply hung there as the guards came in, unlocking the brakes on his table, and slowly wheeling him back down into the holding area where the other subjects were located. How was he supposed to get out of this one? What was happening to Elza? What… was he going to do? What _could_ he do?


End file.
